Category Archives: Knowing God

Holiness: You shall be perfect, Knowing God, Walking in the Spirit

Power Stations

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Christmas is always a very busy time in the church calendar, and January is usually when church leaders look back over those Christmas activities and evaluate them. Or at least, one would hope that is the case. But what do we evaluate our activities (Christmas and otherwise) against? In the business world, we look for a return on investment, and in our Father’s business it is no different. Jesus talks about it in the parable of the talents: the master expected a return on His investment. Jesus invested everything in us when He went to the cross, and the Father who sent him is looking for fruit that endures (John 15:16) as His return. Jesus fell to the ground and died to seed a vine that would bear fruit. It follows that whatever activities we do in the name of Jesus (and Colossians 3:17 exhorts us to do everything in His name) should be directed toward His purpose, which is to bear fruit; to give our Master a return on His investment; to see the Kingdom of God extended on Earth.

As far as I can see, the Bible only defines Christ’s purpose in three ways. Jesus himself talked consistently of two of them, which was to reveal the Father and His Kingdom, and John adds a third strand, which was to destroy the works of the evil one (1 John 3:8). These are most famously and succinctly summed up in the best known of all quotes from the New Testament, John 3:16: God sent His only begotten son into the world, that (i.e. with the purpose of) we should not perish (the work of the evil one) but have everlasting life (in the Kingdom Of God). Jesus also defines everlasting life as knowing the Father (John 17:3). John 3:16 really is the church’s mission statement.

So we have a clear lens through which to view the activities in which we invest time, manpower and money. To what extent are they in keeping with Jesus’s mission statement for His church? Are they, directly or indirectly, manifesting the Father? Are they preaching the Kingdom, taking it by force (Matthew 11:12) and destroying the works of the evil one in doing so? Are they equipping others for this work (Eph 4:12)? If they are, then we’re on mission; if not, we need to focus on what is, “redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:16)

As we well know, the only way we can do the work of the Kingdom is in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus came to give life and that in abundance (John 10 :10) – everlasting Life. Being vessels for abundant life is always the goal of our mission. We are called to be power stations, individually, and as churches, generating that abundant life, bringing the everlasting energia of the Kingdom of God into this world; bringing Heaven to Earth. Our Father, the vine dresser, is looking for fruit that endures on His vine; He prunes the dead wood, and throws it in the fire. Jesus baptises with the Holy Spirit, and with fire (Matt 3:11). Jesus said “I’ve come to set the Earth on fire; how I wish it were already kindled!“ (Luke 12:49). We can only guess at what Jesus was thinking here, but I believe He was looking beyond the cross to the day of Pentecost, when the tongues of fire came and set the kindling wood of His first church alight. Fire burns the fruitless branches of the vine, and it also brings holiness. In a power station, it is the source of the energy. We can’t have the power without the fire. We can achieve nothing for the Kingdom of God, unless it is by the power of the Holy Spirit, and along with the power of the Holy Spirit comes the fire that sooner or later burns up whatever is not of Him.

So let us always that check that the branches in our part of the vine are bearing the fruit of abundant life, and allow the pruning and the fire if they are barren.

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

Breakfast on the Beach: the King and His Kingdom

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“After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and in this way He showed Himself: Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of His disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We are going with you also.” They went out and immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing. But when the morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Then Jesus said to them, “Children, have you any food?” They answered Him, “No.” And He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish.”
(John 21: 1-6)

Anything eaten with bread
I don’t know how many times I have read this account since I first staggered into John’s gospel nearly 40 years ago, but it struck me this time that Jesus didn’t ask them the natural question that you put to fishermen, which is “Have you caught anything?” Instead He asked if they had got any food. I wondered why He addressed them in this way, so I looked up the Greek. The word He used is prosphagion, which is sometimes also translated as “meat,” but refers particularly to anything eaten with bread. Since the men were fishing, Jesus was obviously asking about fish, but what He was asking was “Do you have any fish to eat with bread?”

As we know, the answer was a big round zero. They had nothing that went with bread. When we look at this figuratively it becomes even richer in meaning, because whatever it is that our “fishing” entails, not only does its fruitfulness depend on whether or not we are being guided by the Holy Spirit, but it is incomplete without Jesus, the Bread.

The King and the Kingdom
The disciples had nothing, and Jesus, the Bread from Heaven, was there with everything. He had bread and fish to eat, and the fire it was cooking on. He could have just given his tired, hungry friends a breakfast to remember and they would have been filled and happy. But He wasn’t just meeting their needs, He was revealing Himself and demonstrating something of His Kingdom – the other side of the boat. Having given the disciples the “Life in abundance” that cannot be found outside of His Kingdom, He invited them to bring Him their catch. And just as their prosphagion – their food – was incomplete without Him, so His breakfast was incomplete without their catch. Jesus is Lord of a Kingdom: if we want to bring people to the King, we need to show them His Kingdom; and we cannot invite them to the Kingdom without introducing them to the King.

“As soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish which you have just caught.” Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not broken. Jesus said to them, “Come and eat breakfast.” Yet none of the disciples dared ask Him, “Who are You?”—knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and likewise the fish.” (vs 9-13)

Sharing the feast
So whatever “catch” the Lord sovereignly provides for us, He still asks us to bring it to Him, because “By Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.” (Col 1:16). As we move into a season where reliance on the Holy Spirit’s direction and provision is going to become increasingly necessary, it is paramount that we remember that He wants us to share the feast with Him. Paul writes: “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.” (Col 3:17) He hosts the breakfast, and He must have the glory, not just in name, but in the secret place of our hearts. Anyone can tag “in the name of Jesus” onto the end of a prayer or to cover an action, but the new testament “onama” means so much more than just a designation. Strong’s definition is “the name is used for everything which the name covers, everything the thought or feeling of which is aroused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, remembering, the name, i.e. for one’s rank, authority, interests, pleasure, command, excellences, deeds etc.” We cannot genuinely operate in Jesus’s name if we want our own name in lights as well. If we do not stay in this place of humility we risk drawing attention to the gifts and not to the Giver, and then the Holy Spirit is grieved and will eventually withdraw. Revivals die and ministries burn out when the breakfast is no longer shared with the Lord.

Feeding Others
But the story doesn’t finish here, because immediately after breakfast, Jesus asks Peter to feed and tend His flock. The two aren’t separate. Jesus didn’t just appear on the beach to tell Peter to feed His flock; He demonstrated how to do it by feeding him first. And as it was with Peter, so it is with us: if we have a calling to feed others, we must be able to point them to the abundant life on the Kingdom side of the boat, and then we must invite them into His presence, where the fire of the Holy Spirit is burning.

Discipleship and witness, Knowing God

The Works of the Father (2)

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Just before Jesus died, he declared: “It is finished!“ (John 19:30)  The great work of salvation through His sacrificial death on the cross was accomplished. The veil was torn, and the way to the Father was open.

But this triumphant moment was not the first time that Jesus said that His work was finished. Just after He starts praying to the Father, (John 17:4) He says: “I have finished the work you have given me to do…“ The word teleioō that is used here, translated as completed, or finished, is the same word that He used at the moment of His death. But whatever “work” that the Son of God was referring to as He prayed to the Father, it could not have been the work of redemption, because His blood had not yet been shed. So what was it?

He gives us the answer himself. The full text of John 17:4 – 6 is this:

“I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”

The work that Jesus finished before He went to the cross was to reveal the Father to the ones that the Father had given Him, and by demonstration of the Father’s works to show that He was the one whom the Father had sent…

“If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” (John 10: 37-38)

… so that, once sin had been atoned for and the Holy Spirit had been given, they could faithfully carry on the work of revealing the Father to others.

 “As the Father sent me, so I send you,” He said. (John 20:21) So now, 2000 years later, here we stand, being sent into all the world to make disciples, called to do the same work that Jesus did, in His name. No less than those first twelve were trained and equipped to carry on with His mission, our task is to reveal the Father to the ones He brings us. Jesus completed the work of revealing the Father because He knew Him intimately; He was, as He said more than once, one with Him. But this was His promise to us, and His prayer for us as well: “I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one.” (John 17:23)

In the Spirit we are one with the Father as we are one with Jesus. So how well to we know Him? Do we know what He is feeling? Can we see what He is seeing? Can we hear what He is saying? His thoughts aren’t our thoughts – so if we are going to follow Jesus by revealing Him, we need to spend time with Him and learn what His thoughts actually are. As we walk in the grace and forgiveness that Jesus purchased for us at that second, and greatest, moment of completion, let us remember the work that He spoke of at the time of the first one, and that He has passed on to us.

 By His Spirit the Father dwells within us, waiting to be manifested.