Jesus is for losers

the self-made need not apply…

Grace from the blood of a tree…

Lord, I’m so thirsty… take me to the waterfall.

It’s time to cross the streams

Remember Ghostbusters? At the end, the demon/ghost couldn’t be overpowered. The end of the world was near. The answer was to “cross the streams” of the laser-powered ghost capturing things. It’d never been done before. It was dangerous. Deadly.

But also necessary given the certain death the crew were facing.

So it is with the church. God has raised up various movements. Some strong in worship. Some strong in the prophetic. Others strong in healing. Others evangelism. Others missions and church planting/apostolic vision.

Now as the times are getting harder, the world darker, the scenario all the more desperate, it is time to cross the streams. When we do the spiritual nuclear explosion is going to shock all of us, especially the world.

Isaiah 43:19
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

Soaring, flying… breaking free

OK, so it’s pure cheese of the reprocessed nacho gloop variety, but I can’t help seeing the analogies in this song to our relationship with God….

Isaiah 61:7 (Amplified)

Instead of your [former] shame you shall have a twofold recompense; instead of dishonor and reproach [your people] shall rejoice in their portion.

Isaiah 55:12

For you shall go out [from the spiritual exile caused by sin and evil into the homeland] with joy and be led forth [by your Leader, the Lord Himself, and His word] with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Nahum 1:12-13

12Thus says the Lord: Though they be in full strength and likewise many, even so shall [the Assyrians] be cut down when [their evil counselor] shall pass away. Though I have afflicted you [Jerusalem], I will not cause you to be afflicted [for your past sins] any more.

13For now will I break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds asunder.

The cord of three strands

When David stood before Goliath, he knew that God was going to bring deliverance not only for him but also for the people of Israel, and not only that God’s manifest destiny for Israel would be preserved and not destroyed.

What was it that David had that gave him such complete confidence that when he came out to challenge Goliath, he would prevail?

I believe that it was the strength of David’s relationship with God, that he had built up over the lonely years of shepherding, when he was overlooked by his family, as he learned to worship God and to serve Him only, he developed a strong bond with God the Father Almighty, the Lord God Almighty, the Lord of Hosts.

In Ecclesiastes 4:12 we read that a cord of three strands is not easily broken. I believe that there were three key aspects to David’s relationship with God that enabled him to stand fast in the face of death.

(1) Faith
(2) Preparation
(3) Keeping it real

Each of those strands is in turn made up of three components. So we have
Faith, the presence of God, the call of God. David not only believed God, he had also been set apart by God, anointed by God (the call of God) and he also had cultivated the presence of God by becoming a worshipper.
Likewise, we have no business standing before Goliath unless we likewise have faith: we believe God; we’ve been called: appointed, anointed; we have cultivated the presence of God around our lives through seeking Him in prayer, through the word, and through worship. If we do that, we have the first strand in our lives intact.

Which brings me to the second strand. We have preparation. This in turn requires the presence of God (the anointing, the call of God, worship), and it requires humility, and it requires us to show up having done the absolute best with what God has given us. Consider the parable of the talents. Jesus has given us gifts, He has given us talents. And we’re to use them. But not the things that He hasn’t given to us. David was not (at the time of facing Goliath) a battle-hardened warrior. That was the problem. He was a shepherd boy, with a lot of time on his hands. Did he sit around thinking “oh dear, poor me, I’m only a poor useless shepherd boy, what can God ever use me for, I’m not a warrior, I’m not particularly talented, I’m not especially clever, oh poor me”. No he did not. He practiced with his slingshot. In the hours and hours of boredom, watching over his “few sheep”, he did not waste what he had. He learned to be a crack shot. God used this to overcome Goliath.

So you’re thinking “Well, I have absolutely nothing, I’m not even any good with a slingshot, I’m a complete unco, God could never have used me”. Wrong. God will use whatever you have. That is where the humility component and the anointing component come in. If David truly had no skills in at all, he would have overcome Goliath with “just” the anointing on his life. Humility required of David that he recognize that Saul’s armour wasn’t going to work. He went in the strength he had, having learned the lessons from the stories of his ancestors, in particular Moses and Gideon. But the preparation strand means that effort was required, and time was required, and waiting on God was required. God knows the timing. Our times are in His hands.
In the meantime we don’t sit twiddling our thumbs, we put our hands to the plow whatever is in front of us and we use the time wisely to prepare.

Finally, we have the component of “keeping it real”. Which is similar to the strand of preparation, yet different. The emphasis of this strand is humility. We understand not just that we can do nothing apart from God but that we can do everything in Him. All things are ours. All things are possible, to those who believe. So this strand is combined with faith. In fact its faith, hope and love wrapped in a cloak of humility.

So we have the three strands of the cord that must tie us to God, and does tie us to God in Christ.

The faith strand, made up of faith, the presence of God and the call of God. In other words, the anointing.
The preparation strand, made up of our talents and effort (preparation), the presence of God and humility.
The “keeping it real” strand: faith, hope and love wrapped up in the cloak of humility.

Remember we are God’s workmanship, and we are created to do good works in Christ.

Colossians chapter 1, the Message:

“The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope.”

There is a hope laid up for us in heaven, that God wants to use us to bring to earth. Touching heaven, pulling down the blessing, and changing earth. All things are possible, if we believe.

Accepted in the Beloved

God has made us accepted in the Beloved?

How, you ask? Through His own beloved Son, we are accepted. He reigns, and we reign in Him, and we are the righteousness of God by proxy. If you accept Him. If you believe in Him.

God so loved the world that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, shall not be left alone, shall not be left to themselves to die, shall not be forsaken, but shall have eternal, everlasting, timeless, permanent, unchanging, glorious life, redemption, salvation, hope, joy, peace, newness of being, rebirth, sanctification, revival.

In him and through him and to him are all things.

Where is there room for a lack of self-esteem, when God himself esteems you so highly that He would die for you?
In fact He did esteem you so highly that He did die for you.

“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.”

Yet Jesus Christ died for you, because He esteemed you that much. Because He loved you that much,
He poured out every last drop of His precious blood, in order to make you accepted and acceptable to God.

In the light of that… where is there any room for self-doubt? Self-condemnation? Despair?

Jesus Christ died for you, He died for me.

Wake up O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will rise upon you.

Walk in the light as He is in the light!! …if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

All sin, all unrighteousness, everything that is not right… made right
everything that is not whole… made whole
darkness… made light

In Him, and through Him and to Him

Amen

A time for fasting

When faced with overwhelming odds, or even what seem to be overwhelming odds, and the impossibility of circumstance or the torment of the promise of God in the face of the inescapable rawness of reality (read: against all hope, Abraham in hope believed) we have two choices.

(a) Give up, i.e. “Fear”, as in we’ve given in to fear
(b) Persevere, i.e. “Do not be afraid”

What to do, how to “persevere” in an impossible task? There seems nothing for it _but_ to give up. When the enemy of our souls seems to have the upper hand, and we just don’t know how to walk in faith… we just don’t have the answers…

Thats the time for prayer and fasting. Jesus said that his disciples would fast when he was taken from them. (by analogy to a bridegroom and his friends).

Sometimes, the presence of God, the bridegroom, the tangible sense of God’s impending victory in the face of the blackness…. is gone, utterly overwhelmed by the gloom. What then?

We fast and pray. That is the hour that is at hand, that is what the church is facing when we just cannot see the way. Not in a haphazard, disorganized way. Not irresponsibly, without an awareness of the cost involved with fasting. Not without a purpose. But because he calls us to fast.

Now is a time for fasting. As the word says in Hosea 10

Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the LORD, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.

Time after time

…we were by nature objects of wrath…but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ^…

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that… he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us…For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—

…we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

God’s kindness leads you toward repentance.

God’s mercies are new every morning.

Like the song, God says “If you fall, I will catch you, I’ll be waiting… time after time”

though a righteous man (or woman) may fall 7 times, he rises again.  Only make a choice.

Listen to Jesus: “Get up!”

The Beginning and The End

Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega.  He is the Beginning and the End.  But as well as this, there is a beginning of His work in us and through us, and there is an end to His work in and through us.

In fact, there are many beginnings and there are many ends to our walk with Jesus, but they all start with Him and they all finish with Him.  The first is when we become Christians, the first time we call on His name, the first time we are saved.  But there are other beginnings.  Every time Jesus calls us to “Come up higher” is a new beginning in Him.

Let me share a picture that I had of one such beginning and one such end.

The beginning I’m envisioning is when Jesus calls us to step up higher in faith.  The picture, is the disciples, in a boat (picture that you and I are the disciples).  The waves are getting bigger.  The wind is getting squallier.  There’s an eerie chill in the air, and dark clouds brooding ferociously beyond the hills.  Soon there is a full blown storm.  Two things are immediately apparent.  This storm is a massive one.  In fact this storm is building in such a way that it looks as if it’s going to kill us.  The second thing is: where is Jesus? He’s not in the boat.

Immediately, panic and fear rise up.  “We’re gonna die,” and Jesus has abandoned us.  Great.

Except… what is that up in the distance, on one of the waves.  A branch? A twig? Some debris? Another abandoned ship, capsized, crew already drowned?  A face? No… it’s gone again.

There it is again, only closer.  What the…?  It’s a man? It’s a ghost?

“Take courage, it is I”

There it is. There’s the moment, the chance to come up higher.  The new beginning.  Jesus is with one breath commanding us to take courage, and in the same breath empowering us with courage. It is him!

“If it is you, Lord, then command me to step out onto the waves.”

Then the supernatural strength comes, the empowerment, the grace, and we’re walking on the water with Jesus.

That’s the beginning.  Thats the new level.   That’s when the faith comes.

Jesus is asking us “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith in the earth?”.  The answer is definitely “yes”, if we respond to his glorious command and impartation: “Take courage, it is I”

So what of the end? The end is in heaven.  The end is when we get to stand before God, before the angels, and before the saints, and we get to receive the reward of our faith.  I see a row of saints, battle-weary but full of the joy of the Lord, standing before the King, like at a medal ceremony, about to receive the Congressional medal of honor.  Jesus stops at each and every one of us, and at that moment all of heaven stops and savours the moment:  Well done, good and faithful servant.  Jesus looks at each one of us, individually in the eye, and for that moment His joy is complete.  At that moment we understand the infinite, eternal, value of all our trials and the opportunities that Jesus has given us, and we get to complete His joy.

Not just our joy, His joy.

The beginning, and the end.  The beginning is Jesus, the end is Jesus.  Every step of the way, but it requires faith.

But my righteous one will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back,
I will not be pleased with him.”

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

And God is pleased with us, as we turn to Him in the midst of the storm, as we call upon the Name of the Lord, and as we are saved.

Strengthen your bedraggled hands and feeble knees…

…and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather healed.

God wants to strengthen us, lift us up so that we can shine in these days in which we live.

From the strengthening flows healing, from the healing salvation, from the salvation praise.

God himself will do the strengthening, God himself will do the healing.  We simply need to call upon his name.

Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.

Isaiah 40:

“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!”
Says your God.
“ Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,
That her warfare is ended…

“ Prepare the way of the LORD;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;

Psalm 28:

The LORD is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;

Therefore my heart greatly rejoices,
And with my song I will praise Him.

The LORD is their strength,
And He is the saving refuge of His anointed.

Save Your people,
And bless Your inheritance;
Shepherd them also,
And bear them up forever.

For You will light my lamp;
The LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.

Psalm 18:

For by You I can run against a troop,
By my God I can leap over a wall.

As for God, His way is perfect;
The word of the LORD is proven;
He is a shield to all who trust in Him.

For who is God, except the LORD?
And who is a rock, except our God?

It is God who arms me with strength,
And makes my way perfect.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
And sets me on my high places.
He teaches my hands to make war,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

Wait for Him… Abide in Him

I’ve been meditating on Isaiah 30 today; God promises us rest if we turn to Him:

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength
but you would have none of it.

How hard is it for us to do that… and when trouble strikes how easy it is to look to the tangible: our own resources, the resources of society, our friends, our employers, our workplaces, our education, our family. Yet in times like these where are we to turn when these fail us?

You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’
Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!

Isaiah prophesied this when times were tough: Assyria was breathing down the neck of God’s people, and captivity beckoned. Rather like today. As captivity beckons, who do we turn to?

“Woe to the obstinate children,”
declares the LORD,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,
to Egypt’s shade for refuge. who go down to Egypt
without consulting me;

…

Through a land of hardship and distress,
of lions and lionesses,
of adders and darting snakes,
the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs,
their treasures on the humps of camels,
to that unprofitable nation, to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless.

The effort involved in “travelling to Egypt”, to attain the “useless” help of the arm of the flesh, is just not worth it.

I am reminded of Jesus’ words:

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

What to do, then, in times of trouble. Obviously, not nothing. No, we are to seek the Lord:

…the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!
O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more.
How gracious he will be when you cry for help!
As soon as he hears, he will answer you.
Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.
Whether you turn to the right or to the left,
your ears will hear a voice behind you,
saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

God himself will send the help, the teachers that we need.

Though he gives us the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, as soon as he hears, he will answer us. As soon as he hears. Has he heard from you today?