Category Archives: Discipleship and witness

The world will know that we are Jesus’s disciples by our love; but Jesus didn’t tell us that this is how we make disciples. The New Testament model for making disciples is to glorify the Father by doing His works in the name of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are called to show the world the Triune God in action.

Discipleship and witness, Living by Faith, Pursuing Love

Pictures from China: 3) The Narrow Way

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Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths. (Prov 3:6)

Along with John 3:16, these are probably two of the best-known verses of the Bible: we all want God to direct our paths- especially if it is along the Psalm 23 route of quiet waters, with the table that He has set before us somewhere along the way. When we visited the Great Wall I knew I would write something about it, as it is such an iconic monument, but I didn’t know what it was going to be. What I’ve got is a few thoughts on the paths that He directs us on.

The paths of righteousness

The verb translated as “direct” our paths is to maintain the straight and right, from the same route as the word used to describe Job, who was an upright and blameless man. This verse doesn’t just mean God will tell us what to do, and where to go; it means that if we acknowledge Him in all our ways, He will lead us in His paths – the paths of righteousness. And not actually for our own benefit, but for His name’s sake, as Psalm 23 (v3) also tells us. The blessings and benefits do come our way of course, but it’s always when we seek His path and not our own…

Lifted up

Before walking along the path you have to reach it. And the way up is by cable car. We have to be lifted up to start the journey. Cue Eph 2:6 “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Or, if you want a more active version, Hab 3:19 “The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon my high places.”

We can try and lift ourselves up of course, and indeed we can achieve a lot: in China and all over the world the testimony to mankind’s efforts to re-create the Tower of Babel is multiplied in taller and taller concrete towers, like these office blocks in Dubai.

Or, we can let God lift us up and build with His stones. We need to be lifted up to walk this path. God’s kingdom doesn’t go up towards Heaven; it comes down from it. What we build in the spirit is always in the higher place, and when the work is complete, the New Jerusalem will come down from Heaven.

The Unprofitable Servant

So what the Great Wall has left me with is a picture of discipleship. The paths that God will direct us in are the paths of righteousness. Righteousness is by faith (Romans 3:21), but living faith is evidenced by works (James 2: 14-24). To walk in the works that God has prepared for us (Eph 2:10) we obviously have to do what He asks us to do, just like the “unprofitable servant” of Luke 17:7-10; and it is this obedience to Jesus (not the words we sing on a Sunday) that is the evidence of our love for Him: “If you love me, you will do as I command.” (John 14:15). And we all know what He has commanded us to do. When we love Jesus, we love one another. Unless we do, there is no walk of faith.

It’s not about you

Faith can be a lot closer to home than the stories in the Bible or the books we read. In fact it needs to be, because without faith in our hearts that recognises that God has a plan that we cannot see but that we nonetheless desire to serve, we do not have the ability in ourselves to lay down our lives and die to self. It is Faith that says “I can’t see the point of this, and I don’t want to do it, but if it will bless somebody else that the Lord loves I won’t think about what it costs me. Instead I will rejoice in the blessing it is bringing to the other person and will trust that God is going to look after me as well.”

To apply faith to our daily life like this is difficult, and the path along the Great Wall is also difficult at times: you don’t go far before you reach a flight of steep steps. But the word that Jesus brought to Nabeel Quereshi (author of “Seeking Allah, finding Jesus”) at his moment of revelation was: “This is not about you.“ It is faith that keeps these words alive in all our hearts, and when we can walk in their truth we are walking the narrow way.

Discipleship and witness, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

Pictures from China: 2) Sojourners and Pilgrims

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As we often remind ourselves, we are no longer of this world if we are born again of the Spirit of God; we are merely in it. We are sojourners and pilgrims (1 Peter 2:11), looking for that heavenly city which is to come as we walk after the spirit and not after the flesh. At least, that is how it’s supposed to be. What is true is that our spirits have been born again into the spiritual dimensions, but our flesh still lives in the world that it was created for – or indeed that was created for it. Our challenge as Christians is to respond to the messages that come to us in the Spirit, and not override them with the signals from the world and the flesh.

Another missed call

Sometimes though, spiritual life is like walking along that street in China, shown above. We are there by faith, but we don’t understand much of what is going on, and if we are getting any signals we often don’t recognise them or understand what they mean until the moment has passed and they are like another missed call on our cellphone. How often do we lament, “Oh, I knew the Lord was telling me (not) to do that! If only I’d listened!” The signals that we follow the most faithfully are the ones generated by our own bodies and our own minds. We might be spiritual beings, surrounded by spiritual realities, but often we might as well simply be creatures of the flesh for all that we are responding to the spiritual dimension.

Our Guide

What we need of course in an alien environment is a guide, and Jesus has given us just that: a guide to walk with who will make sense of the spiritual world that we have become citizens of. I mean the Comforter of course, the Holy Spirit. But He is a gentleman: He won’t translate for us unless we ask Him. And as well as being a gentleman, He is love, so He won’t guide us in His purposes unless our purposes are committed to His. I have a feeling that God is dealing with many of us as individuals to set us free from our self-centred agendas and align our hearts with His own, so we can be prepared for whatever He is about to do on the Earth. We need to be walking with our Guide.

Solid Food

Because I think the Lord wants to lead us into far greater revelation that we have been accustomed to – the “greater things” He spoke of – and He is saying to many of us that the season of spiritual milk is over. We’re  no longer babes, and we need solid food. We have had plenty of lessons in how to operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and we have seen something of the reality of the power of God, but these have mainly been school days and now it’s time to grow up. Classes will always continue for those who need them, but the solid food of living in this world as citizens of the kingdom of God is the same food that Jesus spoke of to His disciples, which is to do the will of the One who sent us. As He sent out the 12 and the 70, He sends the Church out today. To graduate from the classroom requires faith and sacrifice, but it is when we are in touch with the reality of love that we can expect the truth of love to guide us in spiritual realms, and the Power of Love to quicken our lives and flow into the lives of others. We will start to read the signs all around us as we walk: “Reach out here. Touch there. Speak these words. Bring my healing to this sick person. Intercede for this city.  Cast out this demon…”

“Mercy and truth met together.
Righteousness and peace have kissed.
Truth shall spring out of the Earth,
And righteousness shall look down from heaven.

Yes, the Lord will give what is good;
And our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before Him
And shall make His footsteps our pathway.”

(Psalm 85, 10–13).

Christian Life, Discipleship and witness

The Pillars of Evangelism

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The fields are white unto harvest

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul wrote: “But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.” (2 Tim 4:5) If we stopped anyone in the street, Christian or atheist,  (OK anyone over 40 who has lived in an English-speaking country), and asked them to name an evangelist and say what they did, we would almost certainly hear the name of Billy Graham and be told that they stood up in public places and preached about Jesus/ God/ the Bible. I think this image of “the evangelist” is still prevalent in the church today, and that “evangelism” is a special activity carried out at special events by a few gifted people, often in full-time ministry and “living by faith; and that the rest of us can only expect to occasionally “witness” or “share our faith” now and then, “sowing seeds” that we do not necessarily expect to see coming to fruition. But I don’t think this is the truth. In fact I think that it is an enfeebling dilution of the legacy that Jesus left to the Church, and doesn’t really help anyone to fulfil their ministry.  If we combine the “Great Commission” verses in Matthew and Mark into one paragraph, we get the following:

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.  And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues;  they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. Teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs.” (Matt 28:18-30 combined with Mark 16: 15-20)

Just as the church has specialist prophets but “All can prophesy,” (1 Cor 14:31) and has specialist pastors and teachers  but we are all called to love one another and to “teach and admonish one another in all wisdom;” (Col 3:16) we are all called, as Timothy was, to do the work of an evangelist and preach the gospel, even though the church also has specialist evangelists. (See Ephesians 4. It’s not the subject of this article, but leadership in every church should comprise all these specialist ministries. I’m just saying… ) So here are eight principals, eight “pillars of evangelism,” that we can take from Christ’s command. To do the work of an evangelist properly I think we need to take all of them seriously.

  1. All the world
    We Go into all the world. Our workplace as disciples of Jesus is primarily the world. We don’t expect the world to come to the church; we take the church into the world.
  2. Every creature
    We preach to every creature – old, young, rich and poor. God is no respecter of persons. In the parable of the wedding feast Jesus said: “Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.” Our commission is to make sure that the hall is filled with guests: whatever they are wearing, rags or riches, is all replaced by the wedding garment.
  3. Saved… condemned
     We preach the full gospel: salvation and condemnation. To preach is to proclaim, with authority, something that has been done, in the manner of a herald. (From the Strong’s definition.)  We are heralds of what Christ has done for us and its consequences, both for those who believe and those who don’t believe.
  4. Baptizing them
    We baptize converts in water and we baptize in the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands. “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,  of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. (Heb 6: 1-2) The Ephesian church was birthed through baptism and the laying on of hands: “When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.” (Acts 19: 5-6) Being filled with the Holy Spirit has experiential results. If we do not ourselves have the faith and the personal experience to pray for someone to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to experience some consequences of that infilling, we need to leave that ministry to someone who does. In the case of the Ephesians, it was Paul. Otherwise we are offering a hungry person cornflakes and just giving them an empty packet.
  5. I am with you always
    We go, therefore, knowing the presence of God, who with us always, because we are in Christ, baptized into Him, into His death and His resurrection (Romans 6:3). We operate “in the name of Jesus” because we have been baptized into His identity. A Christian is a “little Christ,” not a partial Christ.
  6. All authority
     We go in His authority: When Jesus sent out the seventy, He said “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (Luke 10:19) This was before Pentecost. Whether or not it is in the realm of our current experience, we are now in the day of the Greater Things; we are raised together with Him and seated with Him in Heavenly places. We have more authority now than the seventy, not less.
  7. These signs will follow
     Knowing what it means to be sent in His name, we go in the full expectation of signs and wonders following the preaching of the gospel. Paul writes: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16) To preach the gospel is to proclaim Christ’s authority over all of heaven and earth, over all the works of the enemy including sickness and demonisation. If we have no expectation of His authority being manifested when we preach “the power of God unto salvation,” we are like people who get into their company car and don’t start the engine. Not only are we going nowhere, but we are not honouring the One who paid with His life for us to have the car in which we have been told to “Go.”
  8. Teach them
     Finally, as “fishers of men,” we keep those whom we have caught. Jesus said “Those whom You gave Me, I have kept. And none of them is lost, except the child of perdition.” (John 17:12) God will give us as many as we can keep, therefore we make sure that we teach them all the things that Jesus has commanded us, so that they in turn can go and make disciples.

Jesus said that it’s the harvest field that needs workers, not the seedbed. It’s time the Church took seriously the work of the evangelist, and started reaping. In Matthew 9: 36-38, we read this:

“But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.”

The Greek word that he uses for pray, deomai, means to petition, bag, beseech. It implies a felt need, a longing. We “go” because Jesus tells us to. And yes, the reluctant brother (Matt 21: 28-32) was commended for his obedience. But if we really want to enter into the joy of the reaper (John 4:36) and experience the harvest firsthand, we need to feel the Lord’s compassion for the lost in our own hearts, we need to be aching ourselves for the lack of harvesters, and we need to be beseeching the Lord of the harvest for co-workers who will join us in the task.

In that spirit, Go, therefore!

Be prepared; hold on., Discipleship and witness, Living by Faith, Pursuing Love

The School of Love

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I won’t repeat what I wrote a few days ago: we do not know the day or the hour, but there are abundant signs – in the world, and for those who look upward, in the heavens also – that the return of the King really is at hand. Our mandate is to go into all the world and preach the gospel, preparing the way for that time. Our priority must be to reach the lost. Our light must increase as the darkness deepens. It will do, because Isaiah 60 1-11 says it will: the question that each of us have to face is whether we want to be part of that brilliance or not. To do so we need to grow in three areas: faith, power, and love.

Faith: for ourselves
We will need to grow in faith –we will need it as individuals, to depend increasingly on Jehovah Jireh as the provision of the world fails. If, as Revelation 13:17 says will happen, we are forced to choose between trading in the system of the world and its banking and being true to our King and His Kingdom, we will need to walk day by day in the expectation and experience of God’s supernatural provision. I wrote a couple of years ago about the time at the beginning of lockdown when everyone was panic-buying toilet rolls and there were none in the shops:  God told us not to join the panic but to rely on Him, and when we were down to our last one a delivery van full of them pulled up next to my wife at the local petrol station. God delights to show His little flock that they need not fear. (Luke 12:32) But this is just one example of God’s faithfulness and practical care out of three years of living by our bank cards and not by faith. How prepared are we for this to be a way of life?

The Bible verses abound, beginning a small selection with Hebrews 10:38 : “The just shall live by faith.” Paul reminds us that “We walk by faith and not by sight.” (2 Cor 5:7) “The prayer of faith will heal the sick,” declares James. (James 5:15). Hebrews again: “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him,” (Heb 11:6) and to finish, Paul’s pithy statement to the Romans: “Whatever is not of faith is sin.” However we choose to look at our walk with God in these last days, there is one truth that is paramount: every step we take has to be a step of faith.

Power: for the world
Faith is not just for our daily bread of course: we will need it to grow in power, the second area of need. The world will need to see us move in the power of the Holy Spirit if the multitudes who are in the valley of decision are to see the word of the gospel confirmed in signs and wonders and come to faith. Romans 1:16 tells us that the gospel  “is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes…” As I wrote in “Rainbows and Chickens,” those who believe that God moves in signs and wonders today need to preach the gospel to see the power of God at work; and those who regularly preach the gospel need to have an expectation of God to confirm that word with signs and wonders. Word and Spirit must work together. Hebrews 4:2 is a key verse:

“For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them,  not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.”

So here is the equation: Faith + the gospel = power to save. Paul wrote this to the Galatians: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Gal 3:17) This is not theoretical language; this is truth. To be baptized in the Holy Spirit is to be immersed, soaked, in the Spirit of Christ. Being “in Christ” isn’t just theology; it’s the reality of being soaked in Him.  And if we are soaked, we can expect people to get wet when we touch them – wet with the miraculous life of Christ. Jesus told us that the way to increase our faith is to understand that we are just “unprofitable servants; we have only done what we were told to do.” (Luke 17:10.) So if we couple the faith of simple obedience with believing the reality of who we really are – who God says we are – in Christ, we can expect to leave a trail of the soaking wet Life of Christ behind us whenever we “go” and preach the gospel. And when those signs and wonders happen, faith rises in many hearts and mixes with the word that was preached, and souls are born again into eternal life.

Love: for the Church
And finally we will need to grow in love – the church will need it, because it’s the unity that commands the blessing and it’s by our love that the world will know that we are disciples of Christ. Faith and love are the two poles of the magnet that powers the dynamo of Kingdom growth. We have all read 1 Corinthians 13 (I am speaking to Christians here: if you aren’t one yet, now is your time), and we know that even faith that moves mountains is nothing without love. To the Galatians Paul says: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.” (Gal 5:6) Without love we are nothing, and our faith and our gifting are to no avail. I don’t think Jesus commanded us to love one another just so that we could be a sort of spiritual shop window for His glory (although we are that: see Ephesians 3:10): the teaching of Jesus on Love puts His command to the church in a far more radical context:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? (Matt 5: 43-46 NIV)

School of Love
I think the Church is our school of love: if we cannot learn to love one another in the church, what hope does the world have to receive what Christ has for them? As Peter writes: “For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Pe 4:7) We cannot  grow in faith and power unless we grow in love as well. Revival is messy and demanding. Converts need to become disciples. Just like the 5,000, the poor who have had the gospel preached to them need to be fed. The lonely and isolated need befriending. We will need to have compassion on the hungry crowd, not send them home – or to someone else’s church. So we need faith and power to see revival happen, but we need love to live with the results.

Jesus wants to come back for a loving bride that is on the same page as Him. I’m not sure if I’m ready for Him yet. What about you?

Christian Life, Discipleship and witness, Pursuing Love

The Body and the Vine

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‘”The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you.”‘

We had an African morning in church today, to celebrate and to feed back on our recent trip to Liberia. As part of the worship, we sang some songs in Zulu with the translations on the screen. One brother comes from South Africa, which isn’t exactly Liberia, but it made the point: we may have different languages and different cultures, but our songs worship the same Lord and have the same meaning. Our churches may be thousands of miles apart, but we are members of the same body and branches of the same Vine. The life of Jesus flows through us all, wherever we are in the world. The verses are familiar:

“The body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” (1 Cor 12: 14-21)

Jesus gave the analogy of the vine to the apostles to express something of the same idea that His Spirit gave to Paul some years later: just as the body has many members, the vine has many branches. Although the description that we have in John’s gospel doesn’t extend to further viticultural details, it is true to say that every branch of the vine is unique, just like every member of the body. But as Jesus said: “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered… If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15: 6,10)

Without love – His Love – the branches wither. As Paul famously wrote to the Corinthians: “Without love, I am nothing.” (1 Cor 13:2)  It all comes down to love. I can pour out my love to Jesus in gratitude for what He has done for me, but unless I can love another branch that is a different shape to me, and maybe has more (or less) fruit, my worship is meaningless. The apostle John makes this clear in his first letter: “For if anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, how can he love God, whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20).

Unless we see one another as members of the one body and allow the love of the vine to flow between us, we are nothing. Without love, the eye expects the whole body to be an eye; without love the hand  tells  the foot “I have no need of you.” Criticism and judgementalism come when the eye doesn’t understand what the hand is doing, and so just sees it as a useless eye. But if the eye sees the hand as a member of the Body that is of equal value to itself, although its purpose is entirely different, the love of the Vine can unite the two. Instead of discarding the foot and all that it stands for (excuse the pun!) the hand will seek to understand the connection the foot has to the body, and through that will understand the foot. And to come back to the relevance of this morning’s service, when the hand speaks to the foot it will seek to use the language of the foot. To speak to the hand, the eye needs to understand how the hand sees the world and to speak the language of the hand. Because this too is love.

“But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased” (verse 18). If you are a hand, and God has set you next to an eye, it was for a reason. Not that you have to learn to see, or even more importantly that you have to teach the eye how to hold a hammer; but that you have to learn to love. Because “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will  ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” (John 15: 7-8)

Discipleship and witness, Walking in the Spirit

Lazarus: the grave and the glory.

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“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)

The following material is from a message I preached in Liberia, so it’s more a collection of bible verses arranged under headings, mostly from John 11: 1-44, than a lot of my own thoughts. Which has to be good, really…

The purpose of Jesus’s ministry was to see  the Kingdom of Heaven established on earth through the church, and the account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead is a picture of exactly that: the Kingdom coming on earth; life overcoming death. In it we see two ways of thinking : the earthly way, represented by Martha and Mary, the disciples, and the Jews; and the Kingdom way of Jesus. We’re going to consider these two, remembering that the Word tells us that if we want to see the “good, pleasing and perfect will” of God, we need to be renewed in the spirit of our minds…

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)

Some aspects of earthly, or carnal thinking.

1) Earthly thinking wants to hold on to circumstances as they are

Verse 21: “ Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” (Martha)
Verse 32: “ Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” (Mary)
Verse 37 “And some of them said, “Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?” (Some of the jews)

2) Earthly thinking sees the problem

Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.“ (Vs 39)

“Rabbi, lately, lately the Jews have sought to stone you, and are you going there again? (Vs 8)

3) Earthly thinking cannot believe the word of God

“I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.” Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” (vs 15-16)

4) Earthly thinking knows the doctrine, but it’s all head-knowledge

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” (v 24)

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” (v 25-27)

Martha knows about Him, but hasn’t grasped that the resurrection itself and eternal life itself are standing in front of her.

5) Earthly thinking depends on someone else

“If only you had been there…”
If only xxx was still here…
If only the leaders would sort this out…
If only an evangelist would come to our town…

Some aspects of Kingdom thinking

  1. When earthly thinking sees the problem, Kingdom thinking sees the glory of God:

“Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (vs 3-4)

2) Kingdom Thinking walks in a different dimension; the dimension of the Spirit:

 “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. (v9)

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor 2:14)

3) Kingdom Thinking knows Gods protection
Again, “Are there not 12 hours in the day …” (v. 9 – in response to the threat of being stoned)

4) Kingdom Thinking knows that Father has heard our prayer:
 “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me…” (vs 41-42)

5) Kingdom Thinking operates out of faith
“Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” (v 40)

How do we change our thinking and renew our minds?

1) Know “The resurrection and the Life” personally.
“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Phil 3:10)

This is the most important point of all. It’s one thing to know about Jesus; it’s something else entirely to know Him personally and have a relationship with Him as one of His disciples. So the first question is this: Do you know Jesus yourself? Have you been born again of the Spirit of God? As Jesus put it Himself: “Truly, truly, I say to you, except anyone be born from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God.”” (John 3:3)

2) Know who He is in you
“But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom 8:11)

“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (col 1:27)

Bible hope is the expectation that something will happen; certainty, not wishful thinking. One of the most telling examples of New Testament “hope” is in Romans 8 20-21: “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that  the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” God didn’t have His fingers crossed when He brought death into the world: He knew for certain that His plan for redemption would be fulfilled.

Jesus was certain that God’s glory would be manifested at the tomb of Lazarus. ““This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.” Through Christ in us we have this certainty of coming glory, and through faith we can make this a reality in our present lives.

3) Hear what He says in the Spirit

Know that “my sheep hear my voice.” Not just my leaders, not just my prophets, not just the man who is preaching, but my sheep. All of them. Learn how to recognise His voice and believe what He says, because faith comes from hearing. Jesus knew what was coming because His Father had told Him.

4) Instead of wanting to hold on to what you’ve had, look forward to what God is going to bring.

“Didn’t I tell you that you see the glory of God?”

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of what we need to do in order to renew our minds and move towards resurrection life, but it illustrates an important principal of discipleship: we can either stare at life’s tombstones, or we can be like Jesus and look for the glory. The decision is ours.





Be prepared; hold on., Discipleship and witness, Pursuing Love

Prepare Ye the way the Lord! Make His paths straight.

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“And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.“ (Colossians 3:17).

I’ve just come back from a mission trip to Liberia in West Africa, a nation destroyed by civil war in the 1990s and more recently ravaged again by Ebola. Our team spent a week preaching the gospel, doing leadership training, working with women,  children and teenagers, and holding medical clinics. There were eight of us in the team, each with different skills and specialisms, which we all used to one purpose, which was to share the love of Jesus wherever we went, in word and deed. We had a full schedule, and our trip was focused and fruitful. We used different ministries effectively. I think we could say, with some confidence that it was a fulfilment of the injunction of Colossians 3:17: “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

I have mentioned this, not to draw attention to our ministry, but to use it as a model of what we are called to be doing all the time. We are not our own, but were bought with a price (1 Cor 6:20), commissioned to be on mission all the time wherever we are. We have different gifts and ministries, but they are all devoted to one goal, which is for the body of Christ to become “a perfect man“ (Ephesians 4:13) and for the Kingdom Of God to come on Earth as we live through Him and do everything in His name according to Colossians 3:17.

If someone wants to do something in my name, I would want it to be done as if I were doing it; if not, I would not want my name on it. To do something “in Jesus name,“ not does not mean just to use the phrase like a rubber stamp on all our prayers and proclamations, but to live and speak in such a way that Jesus is happy to have His name on what we say and do.  In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes: “For us there is one God, the father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.“ (1 Cor 8:6).  If we live through Him, that means He’s touching everything we do, and everything we do can be a path from heaven to earth.  If  He isn’t touching everything we do, we aren’t living through Him.

One of the biggest problems in Liberia is the lack of roads. One of the greatest empires in the history of mankind was the roman empire. The Romans built a civilisation by building the roads first: once the roads were down, people and supplies could travel to build and strengthen communities. Without the roads, communities in Liberia remain weak and isolated.

Jesus is coming back soon: how well are we building His roads?  The gospel is being preached to all nations: the Queens’s evangelistic funeral service was attended by the heads (or their representatives) of all but two of the world’s nations, and now the TV series “The Chosen” is being watched by millions. End time prophecy is being fulfilled, the world is going up in smoke , global warming has already gone past tipping point, and no policy or man can fix it. Our call is to prepare the Way of the Lord and make His paths straight: this is the work of the Holy Spirit through us. Our lives are His paths: every day, every moment, is an opportunity for Him to travel from heaven through us. What are His paths in our lives like: straight, like Roman roads, ready for him to bring his supplies at a moment’s notice; or are they potholed unsurfaced tracks that leave His kingdom unfinished and His people impoverished and incomplete?

As the apostle Francis of Assisi (1181-1226 AD) is often quoted as saying: “Preach the gospel at all times, and use words if necessary.” So many of us are full of knowledge, and consequently full of words; but knowledge puffs up and does nothing to build the roads. Only love edifies. Whatever we do in love will have His name on it, and nothing else will make His paths straight.

Discipleship and witness

“Oh lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise” (Psalm 51, verse 15)

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A couple of weeks ago I watched tens of thousands of starlings flocking together,  and saw how they can represent the unity of the Body of Christ. The other evening I walked down the road and watched one starling singing from a chimney pot. It was captivating. I was actually in Spain, and I noticed how different this bird’s song was from the ones at home. Although they do have a lot of sounds in common, each starling has its unique song:  they vary according to the area they live in and what local sounds they pick up and mimic. And this one was definitely singing in Spanish!

So why starlings again? Because God is calling forth the voice of his people. Each one of us in the Body of Christ has a unique voice. A voice might be for a region or for a nation or for the church, for a workplace or the family, but it will be different from any other voice in the body; and when we open our lips and express anything that God has given us with the voice that is our own, it is to the praise of His glory.

However many of Gods starlings are not opening their lips. They may have been saved for years, yet they still don’t know what their voice is – they literally don’t know the sound of it. And yet the Lord wants an expressive people, a church who will declare His word, minister His truth, share His love, and praise His name. Jesus sent us all to preach the gospel. Most of the gifts of the Spirit needs to be put into words. God is a verbal God, and he wants a verbal people. A verbal people is a powerful people.

This is where the five-fold ministries come in. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are people who have found their voice. God has given these gifts to the church to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:12)  1 Corinthians 14:26 says “each one has a hymn, a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church is built up.”  Paul writes to the Romans: “Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.” One of the main goals of the church that we find in the New Testament is the edification (building up) of disciples so that they can come to maturity.

But over the centuries, the enemy has silenced the voices of God’s people and the church has not been built up the way that God intends. Whether we operate in a five-fold ministry or not, we need to help His starlings to find their voices, however we can, whenever and wherever we can. We need to equip the saints for works of ministry so that the whole flock is opening its lips and declaring the praises of God, and we need to share this vision with everyone we can. There are many church leaders that need to hear this message: it won’t always be received, particularly if religious or other controlling spirits are over the church, but it must be spoken.

Finally,  we must never stop listening to the starlings, because we are only starlings ourselves. And when everyone has found their voice, the whole church is built up. What is the result? Ephesians 4:13 tells us clearly: “We all come to the unity of faith and to the knowledge of the son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.“

Once that has been achieved, the bride is ready for the groom.

Christian Life, Discipleship and witness

Is everything just chance – or is there a plan?

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This is the story of how I met the Living God.

My (second) marriage was already falling apart. I’d gone to a church because it had beautiful grounds and I thought I’d find some sort of peace there. Christianity didn’t interest me; Jesus was a pretty two-dimensional Sunday school figure who lived in children’s illustrations. The priest was talking about “The God of Love and the Love of God”. I was looking out of the window into the gardens, and thinking more about the love of women, something along the lines of “If we split up there are plenty more fish in the sea, and I could see our daughter at weekends – it won’t be the end of the world…”

Suddenly I saw something I’d never seen before: all my string of relationships (including the present one) lined up like dominoes, and all falling over. Each of them had something in common: me. I realised that the next relationship would go the same way as all the rest, and I would be without love. There may be plenty more fish in the sea, but for me the sea would always be empty. Being without love was the one thing in life that I could not face. Meanwhile this guy in a black dress was standing in front of me, talking about Jesus loving me so much he went to the cross and died for my sins.

I didn’t really understand about Jesus “dying for my sins”, but I understood about being loved. I shut my eyes and said something like this: “Jesus, if you really are there and you love my like this bloke says you do, I’ll have to have your love, because I can’t live without any at all!”

The next moment it was as if Jesus himself was standing next to me with His arm round my shoulder.  It was so real that I felt like I would have seen Him if I had opened my eyes. It was as if I was being filled from head to toe with golden, liquid light. A voice came into my head, saying, “I have always loved you, and I will never leave you nor forsake you”.

I came out of that church feeling that I had hope and a future. I didn’t say anything to my wife though, in case she said “That’s fine, then – you’ve got Jesus now, so you don’t need me…” Two weeks later, though, she had a deep personal experience herself of the reality of Jesus, and, after considerable prevarication, we joined a church and started on a new life as Christians.

That was nearly forty years ago. Life has not been easy, but it has been fruitful: we have three lovely children and six  grandchildren, and run a successful business that has won several awards. One of our children works in the business with us. Over the years, in our lives and in the lives of many other people that we know, we have seen this living God at work supernaturally to bring peace, healing, resources, and victory over impossible circumstances. Not always, to be sure, and sometimes not when you feel like you need the intervention the most; and we will all have a lot of questions for Him when we get to heaven. But knowing God is like listening to an Orchestra where you only might only get to hear a few of the notes, but those chords are so real and so amazing that you know they all belong to one piece of music, led by one master conductor. You want to hear more, and most of all you want to get to know the conductor.

The Kingdom of God
If you’ve already met the Conductor this next bit will be familiar territory for you: you can stop here, and I hope you enjoyed my story! But if you haven’t – please read on, because it could change your life.

I didn’t understand it at the time, other than that I knew I had met God for myself, but that first experience was the Holy Spirit flooding me with the love of Jesus.  One of the fundamentals of biblical Christianity is that, while Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven until such time as He returns (and the way the world is going it looks like that could be soon!), He sent the Holy Spirit to the Church – His body on the earth today – to carry on what He started with His original disciples. When we meet to worship on a Sunday, we expect the Holy Spirit to speak and work through different people, just like in the early church, touching people’s lives and bringing change – bringing more of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Eternal Life
This is God’s plan: sin (that “domino effect”) came into the world, bringing death to everyone; Jesus defeated it by accepting the cosmic punishment for the sin of all humanity, bringing forgiveness and eternal life to all who accept Him. What is eternal life? When Jesus prayed to God,  His Father, just before He was crucified, He said this: “This is everlasting life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Him whom You sent, Jesus Christ. “ (John 17:3) Eternal life is knowing God, and we find it, and Him, in Jesus. Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the Father but by Me.” (John 14:6). At this point what you are reading becomes more than just information to store away, because you can become part of that plan right now. You can meet the Master Conductor yourself, whoever you are and whatever you’ve done. You can start a new life in relationship with God. You decide to live differently (that’s what repentance is), and He guides you and helps you. Here is a simple prayer you can pray before you do anything else. It’s called “The sinner’s prayer:”

Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Saviour and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life.

The Real Giant Leap
Wow. If you prayed that from your heart, lights went on in Heaven for you. It was the first step of your new life, and the most important step you’ll ever make, because you’ve just stepped from darkness to light; from death to life. You have stepped into a relationship with God. Jesus came to mend the relationship between us and our Father who created all things, including you and me. You may well have prayed The Lord’s Prayer in the past, but now you’ve met the person you were talking to; because when we meet Jesus we meet the Father too. Never mind the moon landing; that was the real Giant Leap. And you’ve just joined millions of other people who have prayed those words, because that was the prayer that Billy Graham used at his crusades. Now of course you’ve got to keep walking! Where you stand is a great start, because you are now in the light of eternal life instead of the darkness of death and sin, but you don’t want to stand still for the rest of your life, do you?

Now What?
There’s loads to understand of course – that won’t ever stop. But start by reading the Bible –  begin with the New Testament for now, which is the story and teachings of Jesus and His first disciples (you’ve just become one). Start talking to your new-found, long lost Father about the important things in your life (that is prayer), and ask Jesus to lead you to other Christians and to show you a church to join. You can’t really be a Christian on your own: we need each other. God is a God of relationships. If you see an “Alpha Course” (an international non-denominational introduction to the Christian faith) advertised anywhere, join it. They are really good, lots of churches run them, and they are the real deal.

The Connection
One last thing. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is and has always been in Heaven. The Son, Jesus, came to Earth and went back to Heaven, and the Holy Spirit came from Heaven and is now on Earth. They are all part of each other, and it’s the Holy Spirit who connects Heaven to Earth in His people, the church. Ask Jesus to fill you with the Holy Spirit. There is no textbook description of what you will experience when you do, because we are all different, and it may be nothing straight away; but one thing is sure: He will start to change your life. It’s through the Holy Spirit that you will start to make sense of the Bible; your desires and appetites may well change; you will find the ability to do things you couldn’t do before, (including maybe using a heavenly language called speaking in tongues, and possibly other spiritual gifts – you can read about them in the Bible, in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14); and above all you will start to find that you can love others where you couldn’t before. Because now that you have the love of God inside your own heart, the most important thing for you to do is to share it. Sharing the love of God is what it is all about.

That’s it. I do hope you’ve prayed that prayer. If you have, I’ll see you in Heaven, if not before. Meanwhile, there’s nothing more exciting in Life than when the conductor points His baton at you and says: “It’s your turn!”

Footnote: If you want to use this material to help others to find God’s plan for their lives, it’s available as a pdf file in the “Free Downloads” section.

Second footnote: I go into more detail about my conversion, as well as other significant moments in my life as a disciple of Jesus, in my book “Wheat in the Winepress.”

Discipleship and witness, Walking in the Spirit

The Man who Saw the Light

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He was born blind so that the works of God might be revealed in him.

Whenever I have read the story of the man born blind (John 9: 1-39) I have focussed on the unusual details of the miracle itself, its aftermath, its significance as a sign, the blindness of the Pharisees, and the declaration of Jesus that He is the light of the world:  the stuff of countless sermons. But I have never really thought much about the man’s blindness. When the disciples asked Jesus who had sinned to cause it, the Lord’s answer was, as we probably know:  “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.“

How long, O LORD ?
The thought that struck me when I read the story this time round was simply this: how long has he been waiting in the darkness for the works of God to be revealed in him?  As we know from the account of water being turned into wine, John sees the miracles of Jesus as signs, and his gospel is structured through a progression of signs that bring an unfolding revelation of the deity of Jesus. The work of God that is revealed in this man is centred on Jesus as being the light of the world. The man born blind stands for all mankind, living in darkness until we see the light. Was he aware of God’s plan and God’s timing as he sat begging for scraps by the roadside? I think not. If he prayed, it probably would have been “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13:1)

Transformed to follow
Once God’s purpose was fulfilled his life was totally transformed, and not only was he now able to physically see, but from being a type of Man born in darkness, he becomes a type of Man born again into the Light: he values his testimony above his acceptance by the religious authorities, he is excluded from their system, and he worships Jesus. And from being a nobody by the roadside he becomes probably the best-known man in all of history who ever saw the Light.

Sitting in darkness
God’s ways are so much higher than ours. In His plan, the nations are a drop in the bucket, Isaiah 40:15) and “the glory of a man as the flowers of the grass.“ (1 Pe 1: 24-25) However in the dimension of the Spirit God has plans for us that are of eternal consequence; even though, like the man born blind, we may have absolutely no idea what they could be, and are living off scraps in darkness and uncertainty, unable to see God’s purpose and feeling void of purpose ourselves.

The moment of revelation
Yet the blindness and the scraps were also part of this man’s  calling, as they are of ours: the purpose we were born to was that the works of God should be revealed in us. That roadside is where He has put us, the scraps we receive are from His hand, and that transforming moment of revelation is heading in our direction, walking down the road in Christ.

Caked in mud
With an understanding that God hasn’t just left us in the dark to beg for the rest of our lives but that He has put us where we are for a purpose, it becomes possible to find peace by the roadside. But then the question for all of us is this: when our moment arrives, what will be our response? For the man born blind, an encounter with Jesus began the process of transformation, but it didn’t complete it. After the initial meeting, Jesus put mud on his eyes. Not only were his eyes useless, but now they were caked in dirt as well, and they probably stung. Everything in his flesh would have urged him to wipe it off immediately. Things got worse before they got better. But with the mud came an instruction: “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” Jesus said of His words, “Blessed are you if you do them,” (John 13:17). So the man didn’t try and wipe the stinging mud off his eyes, but he did as he was told.

Sent from the pool
First the encounter, then the mud, then the walk to the pool. The transformation only happened after he had walked and washed. What do we do when God finally turns up after have been praying “How long, Lord?” but then we just get mud on our eyes? 1 Thess 5 16-18 says “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.“  Do we get up and walk in  joy and thanksgiving and recognition of God’s will, or do we stay by the roadside and wait for another encounter?

Walk and Wash
 The man’s life changed when he walked to the pool and washed, not when Jesus first met with him. Siloam means “sent.” The pool of the One who was sent is the pool of forgiveness (His blood) and the pool of the Spirit (the Water). For God’s works to be revealed in us we need to get up and walk, and to be washed in them both.

The roadside, the encounter, and the mud are steps in the preparation of God’s purpose for us; but it’s by walking that we get to Siloam, and it’s from there that we are sent to bring the light.