Soon We Shall See Him

Soon We Will See Him

“Soon and very soon - We are going to see the King
Soon and very soon - We are going to see the King
Soon and very soon - We are going to see the King
Hallelujah, hallelujah, - We're going to see the king”

I wonder, when Andrae Crouch wrote these words, if He saw Jesus return in the clouds? I wonder, when Mercyme wrote “I can only imagine”, if they saw what they wrote in a vision.

“Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel
Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all
I can only imagine.”

A moment in time is coming when there will be one of those theatrical moments – fanfare of trumpets; loud chorus from an unseen choir; pregnant pause chock full of anticipation  . . . . . then Jesus appears in the clouds and we are suddenly swept up to meet with Him.

Well – can you imagine?

If I have any problem at all, it is that I have an incredibly fertile imagination. So, I don’t have any trouble at all imagining all of these things. In fact, I believe it is my prophetic side that is so readily receptive to anything the Lord has to say. When I spend any time alone with Him – I do this whenever I am writing – I seem to say, “Show me.” And He frequently does. I was taught by my prophetic mentor that God always has something to say if we ask Him to just talk to us. He talks to me about the return.

This is why I am so fired up about Jesus return. This is why I so often write about it, and about getting ready; being prepared; and so on. There is no doubt about it – Jesus is coming again – SOON. And when He does, all your plans, all your agendas, all your denominations, all your different theologies, doctrines, and teachings – both true and false – will be thrown out of the window in the light of His eternal truth.

Do you not now see the need for a bit of awe striking envisioning; a few moments of vivid imagining; in order to prepare us for standing before Him in outrageous love, compassion, and worship. This is going to be the moment God’s eternal plans come to fruition; the moment when, for us, time is swept away; the glorious unimaginable moment of such joy, praise, and worship as we cannot even begin to imagine.

It is also going to be a sobering moment as we leave so many behind – and have to account for that fact. The moment when, for those who remain behind, the man of iniquity is revealed, when the great tribulation and the great deception begin.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to miss the first trip, called the rapture. I don’t want to be left behind.

So don’t miss out – get yourself, and those you love, ready.

Psalm 139

What A Prayer!

Psalm 139:23-24 "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. "

If you want a deeper relationship with God; if He is calling you closer and deeper, then these verses are your prayer. Actually, as you read the whole of Psalm 139, does it not stir your heart that God takes that much interest in His creation, you and me, that He gets to know you that well? Does He not call to us to get to know His this well too. Whilst we may not go quite that deep – we can never see Him ‘knit together’ – it is my belief that our loving Father really does want a deep and close relationship with each one of us individually.

Can you imagine just being able to get alone with Him – anywhere we chose? I used to drive a lot and I have had many a conversation with Him on a long drive. What about walking – in the streets or in the countryside – just getting alone with Him is, in many respects, so easy. I have often wondered, when on a country walk and looking around me, how anyone can deny creation. Walking along the beach, perhaps in the surf, just communing with our creator God. What an incredible privilege!!

What would you say? Would you be like the psalmist and say, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” If God is calling you to a deeper relationship with Him, would you open yourself up to Him like this?

Search me, God. Everything hinges upon this first phrase. This is giving God permission to do things. I hear one or two saying, “but He is God. He can do anything He wants to do.” Yes He is God and yes, He can do anything He wants to, but He is also a gentleman, and He will never do anything against our will. It’s called free will – we have the choice. It is why we have to invite Him into our lives in the first place. In order for us to draw nearer to Him, He needs us to invite Him closer to us. In this instance, in order for Him to search us.

Know my heart; search me Lord. Look at every motive, every agenda, every thought – in order to know my heart. Where there is sin or error, Lord, show me that I may repent and ask You to forgive me.

Test me – make sure my motives, my attitudes, my agendas all align with Your Word and Your character.

Know my anxious thoughts. Here’s an interesting one – know my anxious thoughts. Our Father doesn’t want His children to be anxious about anything. He wants us to always be at peace whatever the circumstances.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and show me my faults that I may put them right before you.

Lead me in the way everlasting. The whole point of this exercise is for God to lead us and keep us on the narrow way.

If we are to become more and more like Christ, then we need to pray this prayer more and more often. To even pray the prayer at all, we have to be coming deeper with God. If you want to go deeper in Him, and you really mean it, then get alone with Him and pray these verses of scripture. Pray the whole psalm.

I think you will be amazed what happens.

False Teaching 2

False teaching 2

I recently wrote about false teachings and was challenged on two I didn’t mention – the sinners prayer and infant baptism.

When someone accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, he or she has to pray something in order to publicly declare the Lordship of Christ and to further declare their intent to repent of their sin and to turn their life around and follow God’s ways rather than man’s. There is no precedent for this Biblically but it does seem to me to be a sensible way to start ones Christian walk. How else would you suggest it begins?

Similarly, with infant baptism. It is simply an outward sign of baby dedication to God and a naming ceremony too. Just so long as no salvation significance is placed on the ceremony nor any assumed commitment for the future - because the child has to make his or her own decision when old enough to take responsibility for that. No harm is done and both child and parents are blessed by the ceremony. The role of God-parents has to be between them and God rather than them and the child or its parents. No – so long as no permanent salvation nor Holy Spirit baptismal significance is attributed, then I see no particular harm in infant baptism. I do fundamentally disagree with the doctrine that says, if you have not been baptised by us then we will not marry you nor will we baptise your children – but that’s another matter.

There are probably many other topics we could raise about false teaching but for now I prefer to focus upon false teachers. Bless them, some of these guys are the most earnest, sincere, genuine people you could wish to meet. But you can be sincerely wrong, or earnestly ill-informed. They are well intentioned too yet “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.

Ezekiel 34 talks about shepherds and their responsibilities. Many of those propounding false doctrines are the very shepherds whom the Lord says He will judge with a stricter measure than the rest of us. To me, this is so very sad as these well meaning leaders have first themselves been deceived, and then have led those in their flock down the same path of deception. I do not know what will happen at the last judgement, but I do know there may be some very awkward questions to be answered.

I wonder though, where is the accountability that should have at least protected these leaders. This implies that many more than the odd one or two may be affected by the various deceptions. This then implies further, a problem of iceberg proportions – where 90% is hidden beneath the water. This is beginning to look to me like a cancer of false teaching spreading throughout the body of Christ.

The only way I can see to cure that is for the Lord Himself to perform a drastic surgery upon His Bride. Only a move of Holy Spirit can reverse this. Only a fresh conviction of our sin can prevent the spread of this highly contagious disease. As the Word says, God forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases. (Psalm 103:3)

Prayer and Healing

Prayer and Healing

Not so much a blog posting but more a prayer and praise report from sunny England.

I learned a valuable lesson on healing yesterday. I was listening to my wife reading an excerpt from the sermons and teaching of John G Lake. Lake was asserting that the Biblical route to healing is to pray for yourself first.

I had had a great big fat headache since the early hours of the morning. It hadn’t gone away all day and was, by this time, throbbing away. I was feeling literally sick as, at the time, it was past 4.00p.m. My wife had prayed for me – no effect. My colleagues at the charity shop had prayed for me – still no effect. I had several Facebook friends pray for me – still nothing. So I listened to John Lake. More importantly, I read my Bible and allowed the Word of God to minister to me.   This started to get personal as I read the Amplified version of James 5. It was as if the Holy Spirit was reading it to me. He said, “If you are afflicted in any way – YOU pray first. Then ask for help and only then ask for leaders to anoint you. Your own prayer is powerful enough for this. You don’t need any help – just a mustard seed of faith.” I prayed and within three minutes that headache was gone. Hallelujah \o/

Later in the day some friends arrived for our regular prayer evening with them. I learned another lesson. Their granddaughter had been struck down by malaria in Africa. He had rallied the whole church to prayer for her. She recovered but had been struck down again. We believe we had stopped praying before total healing was completed, so this time ‘we did the job properly’ and hopefully she is now fully restored.

Then, mid-morning yesterday, we get an urgent text from a close family member. My wife’s granddaughter, aged three, has had a seizure and is in hospital. We immediately prayed with them and for them. We heard a couple of hours later the child had a fever and the seizure was almost certainly fever induced and there for of little real concern. Last night she slept very soundly and peacefully – praise God. Yet this was yet another lesson in the power of praying for healing. Another friend, last year, received a wonderful healing which we believe came on the back of concerted fervent prayer.

We have recently been privileged to have taken over running one of our church’s most visible outreaches into the society of our town. This came about after much prayer and visions the Lord has given me for the place. The premises we occupy have enough space downstairs for a fair sized shop and a small 20 seat café. Upstairs is a large stock room, two sub-let rooms, and a spare medium sized room. We are now planning to use this spare room to house a healing room and a prayer room. Three days for one, and two days for the other – not sure which way around yet.

We truly believe in the power of prayer and in God’s willingness to heal – top of head to tip of toes – complete and total healing.

Did God Really Say?

Did God Really Say?

One of Satan’s best questions is “Did God Really Say?”. It was the one which brought about the original sin in the Garden of Eden – Genesis 3:1 “Now the snake was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ “ Yes He did is the answer. There are several other issues just like this where Satan has caused the world to stray far from the Word of God.

There are many ‘abominations’ in the Bible that are regarded as ‘old-fashioned’ or out-moded, or even plain wrong nowadays. Satan is forever asking well meaning but misinformed people, “Did God Really Say?” about things the Bible tells us are so very wrong and which, for generations past, were matters of serious religious or legal offence.

Things like Homosexuality - Leviticus 18:22-23 “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” And bestiality - Leviticus 18:23 “Also you shall not have intercourse with any animal to be defiled with it, nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion.” (See also Romans 1:18 & 1 Corinthians 6:9 & Galations 5:19)Yet such things are permitted, even approved, today. God’s Word says in Genesis 2:24 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”

Practices of transgender and cross dressing are allowed today but are a disgrace before God – Deuteronomy 22:5 “A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”

Trading standards measures, especially as used against the poor and the destitute – Deuteronomy 25:13-16 “You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a large and a small. You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small.  You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just measure, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.  For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the Lord your God.”

Those who wrongly and unjustly judge Proverbs 17:15 “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.”

These are just a few of many examples but many more are written into the canon of scripture.  And in answer to the original question, YES God really did say these things and we ignore or reverse them at our peril.

Church, don’t be fooled by the world; do not listen to their immoral mutterings about God and His out-of-date moral laws. The day you do that is the day you step onto a very slippery slope headed toward the very place you are urging people to avoid – hell.

Yes, seriously, those who defy, deny, or ignore the Word of God are treading a path to Hell because the things they are tinkering with and changing are the very things that are an abomination to our Holy and just God. It is a matter of rebellion for us to defy a Holy God and rebellion, even in the worlds eyes, has always been a punishable offence, even today, in some places, punishable by death.

These are serious matters that the Lord takes very seriously indeed. We trespass here at our peril.