Winter

Winter Draws On

Or should that be Winter Drawers On? Here in the Northern Hemisphere we are watching the approaching winter with our usual mix of stoic resignation, warm anticipation, dread of cold, and the love of Christmas and all that goes with it. It’s the annual season of goodwill to all men, short mostly dismal days, and long dark nights. To be fair the short days can be stunningly beautiful too as the sun glistens on the frost and snow. And, hey, Santa’s on his way and sleigh bells are tinkling.

Yet I look forward to the Winter for some different reasons. Number one is that we are one step nearer to my favourite season of Spring. If Winter is the dead season, then Spring is the resurrection season. Another reason for me liking Winter is that I don’t have to spend so much time outside doing all those spring and summer jobs around the house and garden. So, how then do I spend Winter. What do I do with myself.

To me, Winter is a season of reflection, reading, learning, and prayer. It is when I lay foundations for the coming year. I like to spend even more time listening to the Lord and receiving His plans for me and my family for the coming year. Just as some wives complain about being a “golf widow” or similar, so my wife complains about being a “computer widow” because I spend endless hours either reading from or writing to my laptop. My blog takes about an hour a day, but then I hear quite a lot of other stuff that requires to be written down for future reading.

Being ‘retired’ means almost anything you care to imagine except sitting back doing very little. Both of us being quite active in our local church means that we often wonder how we ever found time to work for our living. So Winter comes almost as the recharging season when we do actually do slightly less and rest slightly more. It really is the season to re-charge our batteries.

Now, before the howls of protest become too deafening, there is still a lot to do during Winter. After all, if we are to keep Christ in Christmas, then there are Christmas presents to consider, a Christmas tree to set up, Christmas carols to be sung, Christmas cards to write and send, the all-important Christmas dinner to be planned, the Christmas calendar to be sorted out (who goes where, when etc), Christmas guests to be invited, and finally, the Christmas Day church service to be joyfully attended – especially as this year Christmas Day is on a Sunday.

Then there’s the post-Christmas sales to be attended, next year’s vacation to be planned, January snow to be cleared and so on. Then there’s February’s freeze and more snow, followed by March snow and very early gardening to be started. Watching for the first Snowdrop, or Crocus, or even Bluebells is always an important part of late Winter and early Spring.

Yet despite all of these important activities, there is always that little bit of extra time to be spent with the Lord – planning His way and His tasks and His will for us. I am planning to get more into His Word this coming Winter and to sit at His feet more and just listen. It is hard for me to just sit and listen yet it is the one ‘activity’ I most need and have to discipline myself to do. There is a quiet joy too in listening, and even more joy in obedience to His words to me.

The Lord is my peace, my hope, my tranquillity, my great love, and many many more things too. Winter is my season of drawing nearer to Him; of getting deeper into His love; of listening to His quiet, calm voice.

That is why I love Winter – it deepens my love for the Lord, it gets me straight for the coming year, and finally, it makes me appreciate the new birth of Spring.

Demons

Delivery Man

Knock knock – “Who is it?” “Delivery man” “OK – come on in.” How often have we heard this? How often has the delivery man come round? What does he deliver? Groceries, pizza, parcel from Amazon or some other supplier? OK, so I’m teasing a little bit. I am leading up to talking about a Christian delivery man or woman.

So what’s different about a Christian delivery man or woman? Let me give you a clue from Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,” Did you spot it? “to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,” Freedom for captives and release from darkness for prisoners – what is that? Or more accurately, who are these captives and prisoners.

The captives and prisoners referred to in this passage of scripture are, I believe, those who are ‘held’ by any addictions, diseases, or demons !! There – I’ve mentioned the unmentionable – demons. Those “delivery” people who help free people from any addiction or disease or any demon are operating in the deliverance ministry. The main issue with this description is whether or not you believe that a Christian can have a demon.

I simply refer you to Mark 16:15-18 “He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” I ask you one question to go with this passage – Do you or do you not believe that the Bible is the Word of God.

To me this is the crux of everything. If we believe the Bible is the Word of God then we have to believe that “In my name they will drive out demons.” It’s no use saying that this died out with the first church, or that it only applied up to the first Pentecost and thereafter the Holy Spirit resides in you so no demon can do so. It would be so illogical for Jesus to speak the great commission if it were to last just 7 or 8 weeks. The Holy Spirit resides in or with our spirit – not in our soul or our flesh. It is in our soul or flesh that demons attach themselves to us with differing levels of legal rights to be there.

Deliverance is still a valid ministry for a Christian despite the cries of those who do not believe in the demonic for any Christian. If we could rid even a small percentage of the church of its demons, we would have a much more Christ-like church. If we could even get more in the church to acknowledge the possibility and presence of demons - well, I can only imagine the effect. They are real and their influence on all our lives is real. Its time to take action against them - before we lose even more people to the one whose only aim is to destroy.

The Presence of God

The Presence of God

We had one of those truly amazing days yesterday. What started as a potentially good Sunday ended up one that I will not forget for a long time. We had morning service then a baptism service for 10 people. We had two friends come for the baptism who stayed for the whole weekend and we had some new friends, together with their family, drive a long way to spend most of the weekend with us too. What an amazing time.

The presence of God was very obvious as we all met up for the first time on Saturday afternoon. There we were in a rather plush hotel drinking coffee and chattering away. We discovered much more about each other especially about the similarities between their and our ministries, their church and our church, and even personality-wise between the seven adults there too. God manifest Himself in that hotel – and He remained with us the entire weekend. What a fabulous family! The kids were polite, respectful, and very well mannered, and mum and dad were the sort of down-to-earth, grounded, and wonderful Christians we all love to meet and fellowship with.

We got back together for the Sunday morning service and our new friends sat-nav did its level best to stop them arriving at all. Yet arrive they did and, for a real treat, we had a packed house – almost standing room only. The praise and worship was incredibly anointed and many were simply weeping for joy in the presence of the Lord. This was followed by a prophecy for our guests, whom pastor had never met until now. After this we had what, for us, was probably the most anointed preaching we had ever heard – the whole place just erupted in joy and praise! Of course, we had to calm down a bit after that so lunch ensued and we all took some much needed breath mixed with more food and great fellowship.

The evening baptism service was one of pure joy and celebration in the presence of a wonderfully delighted Father God and it was especially so for those whose journey had been a fraught one. Two octogenarians started the process – not a dry eye in the house – followed by a young man who had been on a tumultuous journey and for whom Pastor simply held wide his arms for a father’s hug – another very damp eyed moment. Two young women who had tremendous testimonies followed then five more wonderfully saved and blessed souls all with great testimonies – including my precious wife. Finally, one young lady was baptised by her Daddy – to rapturous applause all round for all these wonderful people. The presence of God was so tangible you could cut it with a blunt knife.

After all this, I still have to ask the question, why is not every meeting or service filled with the presence of God as these were? Why is it we expect so little from a Father God who is so willing to fill every meeting with His wonderful presence? Perhaps we should be seeking His presence more and more and more. All day, every day we can spend our time in His presence. Throughout every moment of our lives, He is more than willing to meet with us and walk with us. As we practice and demonstrate our faith, so His presence will become more and more obvious in our lives. Others who have yet to meet Him need to see this in us and then, perhaps, we will see more and more turning to seek that which we have found. That is, to me, the need of our lives – to demonstrate God’s presence and love for all to see.

Listening to others or to God

What are You Doing

“Too many people aren’t doing what God told them to do because they’re so fired up about what somebody else is doing or not doing.” Joyce Meyer

My wife and I love to watch Joyce Meyer on TV. She preaches more common sense in one broadcast than most preachers do in a year. So when I heard her say this, I asked myself, I wonder how many of us this applies to? A good few of us, I reckon, are more excited about what others are doing than about whatever it is that God has asked us to do. In a way, it seems to be the Christian equivalent of keeping up with the Joneses. We seem to have switched off our attention to what God is saying to us in favour of watching and probably criticising what other people are doing.

We had a young man in one church we attended who was always worrying about who would call him and what they might want. He was in a permanent ‘what if’ state of mind. He would follow everyone’s activity with a microscope ‘just in case they come to me for advice then I will know what they are talking about’. This went on until a visiting speaker stopped suddenly, rounded on the young man, and pointing at him said, “Why are you disobeying God? Why are you not doing what He is asking of you? Why are you not evangelising the streets in the evenings?” The young fellow was mortified, and through repentant tears he said, “I didn’t realise He meant now!” Within weeks that young man was totally changed and winning scores of his age group to Christ by touring the clubs on Friday and Saturday nights.

How many of us are ignoring the Lord because we are paying too much attention to others? What does it take to make us stop and just listen to God? Oh – how tired He must be of us being ‘too busy’ to listen to Him. No wonder He sometimes stills us in order to get our attention.

I like this quote from Hebrews 12:28 “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,” It’s that word ‘acceptably’ which to me means that we come with a clean heart; one that is not distracted by others; one that is prepared to listen to Him as well as to offer our worship and praises.

Time to “be still and know that I am God.”

Hypocrisy ??

The Many Faces of Christianity

I wonder how many Christians have a different face for home, for church, for work, for family, for friends, for private, and for public. Over the years, it has been my sad observation that many Christians have at least three different faces they present to the world – depending on which part of their world they are in at the time. I don’t have a problem with this except that I know it’s not right and that Jesus does not approve. The real trouble with this is that the world is no different from you and I and they actually see these different faces too. Hey, we’re none of us perfect, so I expect you can level some of this at me too.

If you were to do a survey for a one word description of Christianity, the huge majority of the world would say, “Hypocrites”. Actually, they would be agreeing with Jesus there. Did He not call the religious people of His time, “White-washed Sepulchres”? Did John the Baptist not also label them, “A brood of vipers”? Did Jesus not also say, about criticism of one another, “You hypocrite – first cast the plank out of your own eye before you criticise the speck in your brothers eye.” So once again the words of Jesus ring true today just as much as they did 2000 years ago.

Actually, I have learned a serious lesson this last week. I am involved in a scheme where discretion has to be high on the list of attributes of belonging. Yet despite my own plea for greater discretion, guess who was the first blabber mouth to speak about it all? Fortunately I “only” spoke to one who knew about the situation so the damage was limited. I can but imagine what would have happened had I chosen a wider audience. It is so easy to slip into ‘chat mode’ with friends and in doing so, many have overstepped into the realm of gossip – me included.

Then there are those who present one face at church, another face at home, and another when out and about at work or shopping. In church we are all very Christian and people think only the very best of us. At home, we can be anything from a raging religious bigot, to a closet drinker/adulterer or other such person. At work we are probably very much worldly – joining in the office gossip, politics, and worldly jokes. Three very different faces of a Christian.

Yet what does Jesus really want? He wants those who are in the world but not of the world. And what exactly is that when it’s at home? I think we need to be a perfectly normal person who happens to be a Christian, rather than the label wearing, Bible quoting, holier-than-thou bigot the world rightly or wrongly sees. My favourite quotation is from Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words”. We need to start acting Christian rather than speaking Christian. This will have a much greater and further reaching effect.

Let Christians learn discretion with their words and do more ‘preaching’ via their actions. Then, just maybe, we will start to earn even a tiny bit of respect for our religious views. Maybe then, people might start asking us about what Christianity is and what it means to us. Maybe then, we might make a habitation fit for the Lord and revival may just start. Who knows?

Something to think about ??