Day: March 29, 2011

A Salvation We Need!

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The heavens opened never to be closed

How wonderful… the thought that God “…gives a salvation we need…” not a quick escape but one we need.   This line has a huge implication for you and me I trust these simple thoughts will stimulate to see the love of the Father towards you and me.

Psalm 85:7

Show us how much you love us, God! Give us the salvation we need!

The salvation we need is found enveloped in ‘chesed’ – Covenant Love, what a salvation O Lord is this one we need?   This is not David telling God how he should be saved or even when to be saved, not a  “God get me out of here” but telling the Lord to use his discretion, give us a salvation we need!     David was asking the Father to flow from his nature that is who He is, in determining what we need!     I am convinced more than ever we should help one another to grasp the nature of God which would enable us to understand how the Father works, delivering us from a spare tire mentality, when I have flat tire I will take God out and allow Him to perform a salvation for me.  Saying to God rather, flow from who you are towards me o God, I can only say that as I grasp a little of His nature!

What an amazing trust first, then what an amazing confidence and what an amazing release to be free to say, ” you do God, what you wish, or better you bring a salvation that is commensurate to your nature.”

NASB  – Show us your loving-kindness, O Lord, And grant us your salvation.

When we request a salvation we need from God himself, then we will become recipients of God ‘chesed’, not our plan, it is to let God take the reins in every way, knowing that he will deal directly according God to his ways.   For our God does not come down to our level to deal with us, he came incarnate into our world in order to lift us up to us to his ways, causing us to live his resurrection life.     This is not escapism but a life where heaven has broken in, enabling us to restore creation; transforming our surroundings, to the life of God, given of God in his salvation.   He took us out of the mud and mire and lifted us upon a solid rock.   He came to our world and lifted our world to his world, is this not salvation in truth.    Heavens coming to earth to transform, resurrect, enable the cosmos to be his creation fully?

The Psalmist has understood that the Father deals with us according to his understanding, his placing, and not according to the lowest common denominator – the way we think.

In other words “…Show us how much you love us, God!       Give us the salvation we need!” Do it according to your nature, let your salvation flow from whom you are my God.   ‘Chesed’ becomes the atmosphere surrounding you o Lord, so that the salvation we need is in line with whom you are, not ‘…just get me out of here…” What an empowering salvation it becomes from this mountain top position.

Give us O God……… in light of the future you are now occupying, give us, in light of what you have determined.   Often we see a salvation that we think we need, in light of our past and the immediate situation we find our selves in, but o Lord you bring it about in light of our future as you have determined.    A salvation we need is in the light of yourself, and in line with your purpose, which is who you are.

In reading I stumbled across an interesting cross-reference to this scripture

Jeremiah 42:12    we’ll pour mercy on you. What’s more, he will show you mercy! He’ll let you come back to your very own land.’

Note that mercy shown is manifested in “…he’ll let you come back to your very own land…” mercy is that he will bring a salvation to return back to our very own land, the realm of this life.  Return to where we belong so to speak as a “…salvation we need!” is to restore us, reinstate us back to the very place of our belonging which is in the mind and heart of the Father, O God BRING IT ON, A SALVATION WE NEED, NOT A NEED OF SALVATION.   A salvation that is a manifestation of who you are, a flow of your nature, a grand joining in the ultimate intention of yourself    BRING IT ON!

Salvation in accordance with His nature and not “…. get me out of here…” but back to Gods ultimate intention!

Salvation we need, how great is your love my Father!

Wind of Change blows

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Change in the Harvest

“Rebels make advance…”, “Assad family rule if Syria…”, “Up to a million flee from Ivory Coast…”, what’s happening across Northern Africa and Arab States?

What changing times we are in once again, some of us are not too old to recall when a wind of change blew across Eastern Europe and walls fell, now we see the cracks in other walls.   First Egypt, then Tunisia, now Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and now Libya, which fills our news, screens and papers.
A couple of weeks ago two teenage sisters marched across a stretch of no mans land in central Bahrain with a national flag and a flower to lay at the feet of the police and army,  directly following their walk, they were captured in TV interviews in floods of tears declaring that they would die for freedom sake, O lord help us!
Commentators shout it’s all about “…OIL…” I am not here to comment on political standpoints or take up arguments better fought by intellectuals,  or argue in political circles, who am I to even tread in these arenas?   What ever the cause or reason we see now, we are yet to see what history will say?
I know that the unrest is not localised to Northern Africa or Arab States when we see riots in Athens or riots in Brussels or even in the UK student  protest,  finance cuts protest on the streets of London.   Yet as a follower of Christ we are to be those who can give insight and interpretation to all that is happening.
We have graduated in the church, the called out people of God, to realise that the Holy Spirit does not restrict himself to moving in the church alone only, but moves in the earth, better  thought in creation as the “…. earth is the Lords…”.    We as people have  realised and discovered that the secular/spiritual divide is not one that can be found within the scriptures or in Gods economy,  discovering that its is more a product of a “modernist’ thinking rather than a God established way.
In considering what we see happening, how do we read it?   Let me suggest one issue that has to be dealt with that I see common to all the upheaval today highlighted in Northern Africa and Arab States.   All the upheaval is in areas where there are regimes in power, where dictators have been sitting for many years, single head leadership.    Any regime, single head leadership worldwide better take note that there is a movement to remove that very system.
In the light of this very thought let me say it in simple terms, where single head leadership is in place the Spirit is moving to change, adjust and de-throne them.    The implication of this is that wherever single head leadership is established within the church, be aware the Spirit is transforming in creation.   The hierarchy of church leadership is under scrutiny!
Be aware that there is a need of transformation in our leadership in line with a people move to bring about the headship of Christ back to the church.    The days of hierarchy are certainly coming to an end,  we will find a new form of leadership that serves the body, as a company of people who know how to take lead from the leading of the Holy Spirit.
There is a move of the Spirit in the cosmos to bring about a suitable administration to these end days in which we live.   Be careful if you are the leadership, and you decide upon all that goes on in the church becoming the single leader or even the only one who controls the money,  there is A Spirit move on to bring about a leadership that is commensurate to the Christ and his purpose.  Let us be those who engage with the Spirit and influence transformation, that God might be at home in his body today
Consider our leadership, that it truly displays the Christ like servant leadership in every way, that it enables the advance of the “FAMILY of God” the church, that we practice a new form of leadership that affects the worlds of business, governments, etc.   Let us be a servant leadership to produce a servant family of God as we listen to the Spirits move!