On earth as it is in heaven
I read this word the other day
"I want those who are in leadership in My Church to be willing to lay down ALL that they have learned about church order and sit at My feet so I can teach them Heavenly Order. I want people on earth to see Heaven when they look at My Church. The current church order is not as it is in Heaven.
“In Heaven all are free. In most churches, the bound leave bound.
In Heaven all are well. In most churches, the sick leave sick.
Heaven is a place of song. Most churches see the worship as only a prelude to preaching.
“I want you to begin to look at things through new eyes, MY eyes. But to do that, you must be willing to lay down what you were taught, and sit at My feet, and allow Me to show you how things are done in Heaven. If a church humbles itself and does things as they do them in Heaven, I will GREATLY bless that church; but if it does not, I will speak to it as I did the fig tree that bore no fruit.” – Jeffery Stewart
This very short summary of the church today was posted on Facebook this week. What I find so desperately sad about it is the truth of the statements made. Yet every week, every service, mid-week as well as Sundays, we bow our heads and intone the words of “the Lords Prayer”!! I have to ask the question – what do we think we are saying? Is this just a rote prayer, with little or no meaning? Is it a meaningless prayer we quote just to prove we have read Matthew 6:8-13? Have we not taken these words of Jesus seriously? Have we ever read and understood verse 14?
Oh dear, I seem to be getting excited. Well, yes, actually I do get excited about the words of this prayer. In particular, I get excited about the thought of the phrase, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. Let me ask you, does this not excite you too?
As my quote says, In Heaven all are free. In most churches, the bound leave bound. Just think about that for a moment – no more abuse, no more drugs, no more prisons, no more bad habits. Wow – does that not get you a little bit excited?
As my quote says, In Heaven all are well. In most churches, the sick leave sick. No more illness or disease. No more hospitals, no more pandemics. Getting excited yet?
As my quote says, Heaven is a place of song. Most churches see the worship as only a prelude to preaching. Just think – praise and worship of our heavenly King with no restraints whatsoever – no time limits, no need for band practices, no desire or need to be elsewhere. “A merry heart, does you good!” Proverbs 17:22; “My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to You, And my soul too.” Psalm 71:23 our heart, our lips, our soul all rejoice when we sing to the Lord. John 4:23 "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks." Still not excited?
Perhaps you just don’t believe either in the power of Jesus words, or in the power of prayer??? Everything on earth as it is in heaven. Perhaps you need to re-align your aim? What a standard to aim at !!
Am I preaching to the choir here? Or am I hitting a few sore spots?
Edge of Reason
It strikes me that, for some among us, reason takes over from faith where, in fact, faith should take over from reason. The trouble is that God already told us that, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9. Our ‘intelligent’ and egotistical minds object to this as we try to rationalise everything.
I believe that, in order to receive the full anointing God has for us and to realise its potential, we need to stand reason to one side. That is when, standing on the edge of reason, we shall become like a child in our faith. Jesus told us to believe, he did not ask us to reason. I am unsure what your mind is telling you, but you don’t need to know or even understand the why and how of healing, you just need to believe, as a child, that God heals.
Oh, I know there are reasons that healing doesn’t happen, but I don’t think we need to understand that either. The Bible tells us that, on many occasions, Jesus healed ALL who came to Him. I’m pretty certain He didn’t fiddle about asking if they were right with God, if they were clean and sin free, or if they had forgiven everyone. No – Jesus simply healed everyone. Healing and deliverance is without repentance, so why do we complicate things and get so legalistic about ‘being right’ in order to even pray for, let alone receive, healing.
The Bible says to cast out demons, and to heal the sick. It says, rather like the advert, “Just do it”. It doesn’t say to interrogate them. Instead it says simply to “heal those who are ill and tell them ‘the kingdom of God has come near to you’.” Luke 10:9 – I would add to make sure you give Jesus the glory.
Good, wonderful people of God, I really do believe it is time to leave our reason and, having come to the edge of reason, to believe as children for God to do what His Word says He can and will do among us. It is also time to accept our authority in Christ and to step out in faith. Faith defies all reason. It is at the edge of reason that real child-like faith is born.
Just imagine the impact of a church that really believes and practices what it preaches about believing as children.
To do or not to do
Jeremiah 20:9 “But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name, his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”
When was the last time a speaker, any speaker, had you on the edge of your seat with expectation of something happening? Something really exciting and big happening in your church, town, county, or even country? When was the last time anyone spoke and you actually got excited at all, let alone on the edge of your seat?
It happened to me quite recently – just a few minutes ago to be more accurate. The speaker was God the Holy Spirit, and what He has said excites me and really does put me on the edge of my seat expecting to see something really special to break out in the next two weeks. Why the next two weeks? Well, we have a very special visitor this Saturday and Sunday who is a world renowned concert pianist as well as being a wonderfully anointed worship leader and song writer. As if this is not expectation enough, our own pastor, himself a world worship leader, is planning to lead an entire Sunday from the keyboard.
The anticipation and expectation is immense, and now a word of the Lord has come to me that effectively and exponentially increases my personal expectation. So what did the Lord say to me?
“Where is your dignity? – surrendered at My feet. I am surrendering your dignity and placing it at my feet. You can come and reclaim it any time you want to - but I’d rather see you dance. You can reclaim it any time you want to but I’d rather hear you singing. You can reclaim it any time you want to but I’d rather see you so full of my joy that you cannot stop either singing or dancing. Now get up and worship Me – and revel in My joy. Enter now into My presence with joy and dancing.”
Will you or won't you?
I Want to Worship
Is it possible for me to enter into worship so completely that I am lost in awe and wonder? Is it possible that such as I could be so immersed in the presence of God that time ceases and my worship becomes pure enough to become His habitation? I find being still so difficult – my mind is always busy. I swear God must despair of getting heard by me sometimes because I am so “busy”. Yet I do hear Him quite often, and I do note what He says to me – frequently putting His words into blog format.
Yet worship is what seems to just fill my heart most days. Oh, I grumble and mumble a bit, but I always end up singing in the end. I sing old, very well known, old hymns as well as my favourite Gaither tracks, and then some simple modern praise and worship songs like Worthy is the Lamb or similar. When I feel down, or fed up, or put upon, or just generally grumpy – it never lasts long because God just pops a song into my heart and I start singing again. Worship brings grace for the day. It brings joy back to my heart – time and time again.
I was raised in a singing home. Dad, my sister and me used to harmonise some of the old songs. Mum was a pianist – even though we never had one at home. My brother was the jazz-man among us. Our school had a very good musical tradition and we did the Messiah every Christmas. My musical tastes were very eclectic ranging from solid classical, through opera, big band and traditional Dixie jazz through to country and gospel. But it was the old gospel that struck the most chords and stuck in my mind. I even remember the Billy Graham crusades in the 50’s – my uncle took my brother to one in London – I was “too young”.
Now, my music and singing is nearly all P&W – Gaithers thru to Hillsong and all shades in between. Worship brings me into the presence of God quicker than any other way. I am inspired, lifted, edified, filled with joy, and renewed by worship. I expect things to happen. I want a totally renewed mind – thinking and speaking in Gods way – capturing each thought and word before it escapes my lips. I want expectancy to be my normal. I want to see God honoured in my life; in the way I treat people and by His presence being obvious to anyone who I meet – even if they don’t recognise it or understand it in any way.
That is why I want to worship my Lord and my Saviour, my father God, and my friend Holy Spirit. How about you ???
Do You Really Mean It?
I had one of those ‘moments’ at church last weekend. It was not just that the Lord asked me a question. It was both the way He asked it and then gave me the ‘no-brainer’ answer at the same time. The net result was that I was convicted and had to do some repenting first. Now I have to consider the question again in the light of my new position. It’s a question the Lord is always asking us . . . . but more of that in a minute or two.
We are all just standing there singing our hearts out in praise and worship. Suddenly the words began to be highlighted. No, I mean really highlighted as in writing a foot high, on a blue background, and shining brightly – all at the same time. That gets my attention every time and so it was this morning.
We sang, “and I fall to my knees so it’s You that they see, not I” – the words get highlighted and I hear the Lord comment, “Only in here!” I protest, “What do mean Lord?” “You mean it when in front of all these people, but outside, in the week, you want you to be seen – not Me”.
OUCH.
Next we sang, “I live for you alone, Every breath that I take , Every moment I'm awake, Lord, have Your way in me.” I see the highlighting again and I hear the Lord say, “Hmmm – I don’t think so.” Oh dear, “How do You mean, Lord?” It is almost a “Where shall I start?” moment, but again He says, “Yes, in here, but not all day, every day.”
Finally, we are singing about giving Him our all, our everything. Once again the words highlight and I hear Him say, very gently, “Not quite like this is it?” It wasn’t a question as much as a statement of fact that I couldn’t deny. I was convicted and had to do some deep and painful repenting. The only question I had was, “Why Lord? Why here? Why now?” He repeated the question or statement He had made earlier, “I want to take you deeper.” Then He added, “Will you come? Will you trust Me to take you deeper into me than you’ve ever been? Deeper than you have thought possible?”
Now I have seen the cost of the answer to this question. This is not an easy one to answer. It can be costly to the one of whom it is asked and for his/her family and friends. It can be costly but it doesn’t necessarily have to be – but it usually is because the enemy hates it and rises up in some force against it. This has been a heavy weekend at the end of a very busy week – and we have several more very busy weeks ahead of us as I have just taken added responsibilities on board. It doesn’t take very much to see that this question and my new, extra busy situation are linked.
So I’m saying “YES Lord. I want to come deeper with You. I want to sing all these words and mean them. Will you help me and, by Your precious Holy Spirit, will you lead me through these coming years of serving You.”
AMEN
Travailing in Prayer
Travailing in anything is hard work - as these definitions state.
Travail as a noun is painfully difficult or burdensome work; toil, pain, anguish or suffering resulting from mental or physical hardship.
Travail as a verb is to toil or exert oneself.
How come is it that for the past few days I have felt not only the Lord ever present with me, but also the desire to be with Him and to minister with Him? Paul exhorts us to pray in the Spirit at all times and to pray without ceasing. I have always, and I mean ever since my baptism in Holy Spirit back in 1989, always known His presence and always had my prayer language, or tongue, bubbling away in the background. Now today, I just want to get deeper, deeper, and deeper still into His wonderful presence.
Many talk about travailing in the Spirit or travailing in prayer. This has never been difficult or a burden for me. I love my times of prayer – I just enjoy them. It isn’t as though I spend a lot of time there either, but it is about the quality and the communion that takes place. Prayer for me is about fellowship with my Saviour through my best friend, Holy Spirit.
Please don’t get me wrong here. I am definitely not in any way ‘super spiritual’. My relationship with the Lord, Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, is about love and communication – and although I am somewhat garrulous with people, this is about the Lord communicating with me. And it’s not as though I gabble away for hours and then ask if He wants to say anything !! I just enjoy resting in Him – being still and knowing that He is God. He always has things to say to us if we are still and listening. I just pray in the Spirit most of the time – if only because I have no idea what to pray about or where to start. Some will say that I don’t travail at all.
This isn’t about me or you ‘travailing’ at anything. This is all about God, and us allowing Him to be who He is, do what He will do, and say what He wants to say to us and through us. This is about your efforts and my efforts at dying to self that He may be seen through us. It’s about us carrying His presence wherever we go and about allowing Him to use us as He wants to.
I don’t always do very well. How about you ? As my school report often used to say – “Could do better”, or “Must try harder”.
Messy – just messy
Do you like messy Christianity? How about messy church? I suppose we had better specify both terms before you answer. Messy Christianity is simply a variation of whatever you describe as being 'Normal' Christianity. To me, it is a form of Christianity in which you get hands on, dirty, and messy. You meet and deal with real people, real life, real situations in the real world. The people you deal with might be relatively poor, homeless, hungry, or just between a rock and a hard place right now. You may be a social worker or a layman, but you can find yourself confronted with a situation that needs help in order to get dealt with.
Messy church, on the other hand, invites those we may well meet "doing" messy Christianity into our churches on Sunday morning. It means that ladies can no longer leave their handbag or purse lying around trusting that no one would touch it because "this is church and it's a safe place."
These definitions change all the usual Christian rules, frequently replacing them with worldly rules abhorred in our cosy, sanctified, and predominantly safe churches. Messy church and Christianity changes all the old rules from safe to, well – messy. I recall a story about an ordinary working man going to a very well to do Anglican church only to be told that “there is no place for you here.” Defending his stance the presiding prelate said he had a very upper middle class church and he needed to ‘protect them’ from those who very clearly did not fit in with that type of people. That church could never handle messy church – would never even try to do so.
Like many other churches in all denominations, there are so many who don’t want too many ‘messy Christians’ in their midst. Even in our church in the not so very distant past, we heard the question, “Do we really want those kind of people here?” I can just imagine how one or two so-called ‘super-churches’ would handle messy Christians alongside their “star members”.
Church, we need to get used to this messy Christianity, and right now too. There are many hurting, damaged people coming to faith in Jesus who need healing and discipling. This is original church in a 21st century context! Jesus did not come for the rich, although neither did He turn them away. Jesus came for the sinner – that’s every man, woman, and child on the planet. He came for the poor, the bound, the captives, the lost – all of them/us. He died for all of us and my only advice to you today is this – get used to messy church and messy Christians. There will be thousands of them coming into our churches very soon now.
How will your church handle this? Better start preparing today.
