Month: April 2011

“Neither…”

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“Neither”

Right or Wrong

What side will you take?

Which one shall I chose?

Who will you stand with?

Life is full of choices they bombard us every day for attention from large challenges to small incidental choices that make up the day, tea or coffee, is it toast or biscuits, this way or that way some times choices of opposites and some times so slightly different that it can be complicated.    Choices of benefits to you personally, choices that benefit the whole wider community, choices that cost you but are for the greater good.  O my word life is full of them!

We also know that from the onset of Gods dealings with humanity, in the account of early Genesis, that he also offers choices.    Looking at the story of Adam the Father seeks to mature his sons by bringing before them choices, so that we can learn what it is to be led by the Spirit (Romans 8:14).   Adam is given a choice of trees to eat from and directed in his choice yet he made the very opposite choice. Since the beginning God has brought moral choices to you and I as a process of our maturing as his sons.     We are even told in Hebrews 5:8 that Jesus who had grown in favour with men also and “learned obedience through suffering” even the Christ had choices set before him, through his overcoming choice He brought to you and I the entry to a face to face relationship with the Father.

Yet within the pages of the bible there are choices offered and some times a different answer is presented and necessary.    When you read the opening chapter of the book of Joshua I suggest one these necessary different answer is being presented.   But let me commence by starting with offering to you a new “beginning” to this familiar account of the battle of Jericho.    We all consider the story commencing in chapter six with God telling the Israelites to walk around Jericho for seven days before the walls “came tumbling down.”    Showing us that there is a time for a “shout of faith” on one day and the long walk of 6 days of “silent faith”, we all like the shout but what about the silent faith, that’s for another article.   Let me suggest to you that the actual story beginnings  at the end of chapter five.   In Joshua 5:13 we are introduced to a simple setting that is often missed, Joshua is “near the city”, he is not at a safe distance but the picture opens up in a risky place for an enemy commander to be.     What he was doing there?      He is not at a safe distance he has found himself near his enemy and as he draws near he is about to encounter the realm beyond the moment.   Is it not often when we feel the imminent danger the nearness of threat that an encounter is on the way?     Was he on a reconnaissance mission?    Was he studying the city walls, trying to come up with a plan of attack?

Suddenly, Joshua is interrupted when he looks up and sees a man in front of him not any man but one with “drawn sword“.  Battle ready and Joshua His battle instincts triggered, Joshua walks forward with a challenge: “Are you for us or our adversaries?”

How does the man answer? “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.”     “Neither”

Joshua’s as many of us was clear in his mind he saw two options for us or from them, but that “neither” blew his for and against, friend-or-foe sides out of the water.      The passage reveals that it is not just a man but God who was in front of Joshua— and God isn’t bound by “option A or option B” thinking.    As the story unfolds we find a strange picture being described as a shoe less commander near the enemy in the middle of holiness as God outlines His plan.

Do you like me often get lost in your mind on what comes before us with “this or that” which is “right or wrong” and the whole moment is summed up with making my choice.  we move from circumstance to people also become either “friends or foes”. I can only choose between ‘option 1 or 2’, ‘door 1 or door 2’.      Sometimes we even come knocking at God, trying to get Him to tell me which option He’s going to identify with.      Joshua’s story reminds me that God may be replying to my “This or that? questions with, “Neither.”      What does that mean to me, just maybe, perhaps it is better I recognize His presence, take off my shoes, and stand still for a while on holy ground.      Not to get religious, but the very place where your foot is standing now, in every day moment is holy ground, this is constantly the ground of God, and therefore holy ground.    Has not heaven come to earth in you, heaven has come to reside in you, to remain in his temple, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, the residence of Christ, you are always standing on holy ground.    Then avoid making somewhere outside of you as holy and disqualifying yourself, thinking too little of yourself, God has chosen to make his residency in this human life, is this not part of salvation?   Heaven has come to earth inside you.    Otherwise we will live always chasing heaven and never arriving.    Realize heaven has taken up residence in you “Christ in us the hope of glory”.     This encounter is to prevent us getting lost in the debate of sides “whose side are you on”, but more bout getting a third perspective, so that He your heavenly Father can outline a perspective we would have never considered otherwise.

“Neither” is often the Fathers view when we offer our predicament, or situation, friend or foe arguments, which way is it this or that and the answer is “neither” let me show you my option.      Listen for your “Neither” to have heavens option

Where is your home?

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Settlement Life

As another journey looms near following an 8-week placement in Africa there comes with it all the necessary packing arrangements, packing the house away so its ready for the next people to arrive, the travel details are now starting to come, needing attention “I hope now can I get an upgrade once again?”    O yes who can I ask to collect us?     While considering these details we are looking back on what we have seen, what we have learned about God, his will and ourselves along with what we have been allowed to put our hands with while being in Africa, thoughts and considerations rush through my mind.

One question we have often been asked as we live life whilst trying to keep obedient to the mind and will of God for our lives.   We trust that every step, action, involvement, every major decision such as a home in Cape Town has a direction of God that we are trying to be obedient to,  so that our lives actually live in worship to him – obedience which is worship our “sacrifice of worship”.

Back to the question “where is your home, Cape Town, Coventry, UK, South Africa?”    My reply is often spoken firstly with a smile “where the heart is followed then by my body and I trust my body is with my heart”.     Yet where is home for each of us? what makes our home?  is it the environment or even the place where I was born and grew up or just where family and people are.   I think we would find differences of definition and places for many on where  your home is.

Try this never mind what age you are having left your parents house to get married or move to university and never return, or even moved out for work, whether you left recently or years ago, do you still “go home” to visit mum and dad? Yet following your visit do you then “go home” again?    I wonder what we do to language with “going home” does the context give us an indication of where home is?  So where is your home?     Having my parents both now passed on did my language change?   or did it change when my mother finally sold our family home several years ago, did home disappear then?

Home, what is your home?  Where is your home?  Are we always traveling towards home, I wonder?

Home opens up a whole view in my mind on dwelling and being at rest and “at home” a place where there is a security, a place of retreat where you find peace and stillness, however I know for some it may not be like this.    My heart and prayer cries on God for those who cannot find this, a place to call home what ever the home looks like and where ever it is placed in this world.

I Know this as well its a place where you have built characteristics into where we call hoe mot find that stillness that pace of being able to retreat to safety and solace where love might be found it does not just happen fully but we have to invest to see it and experience it.

I was reading Psalm 91 that commenced this thought pattern in me Verse 1 & 9 of the Psalm it says “You who sit down in the High God’s presence, spend the night in Shaddai’s shadow…Yes, because God’s your refuge, the High God your very own home…” we are presented with God the Father being our “…very own home…” I respond to that, I make him my abode.   He becomes the place where I kick off my shoes and put my feet up, put on my PJs’ early when no one else will call, where I can just  be me, chilled out.    Perhaps for some this is too easy-going language while relating to the a dwelling place of God the abode of God, the in him,  then the pace I find my rest, security, peace to be off guard.

The Psalm sounds more familiar for us in a traditional translation here its is again “…He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty…For you have made the Lord, my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place…”

Still the question remains where is your home, dwelling place and what is the environment you have in this home, my encouragement to you is to find and make your home in Him, find a way to be in him as  a constant living way of life,  not as a holiday, or as a visitor or a need for council, but t make home in him as a consistent living way never to depart.   He will not remove it from you, he made it possible, so why do we not occupy his possibility.

We are encouraged in the scripture to take on a pilgrim attitude to this world looking for a place; Abraham called it a city, where the foundation and maker is the Father.   As we bring the dimensions of his Kingdom or bring the Fathers home to the cosmos and we are actively involved in transforming this world we have the merging of Heaven and Earth and  he becomes our home.    Pilgrim towards our ultimate goal and his intention making Him our home.    We are living an ever emergent life from him being our home, with discovery and revelation, more and more of his Kingdom, the taste of the age to come is with us as we enjoy him as our home.

SO WHERE is home? … WHY is that home? … WHAT makes it home? … WHO is at your home?

GOD YOUR VERY OWN HOME!

Blazing View!

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Blazing Arrival - Words

Psalm 50;2, 3 (Message)    God blazes into view.    Our God makes his entrance, he’s not shy in his coming.  starburst of fireworks precede him

Wow a God like this, what a picture in the mind it makes, “blazing”, on fire, passionate, “starburst of fireworks” what  a master of ceremony announces his arrival, starburst my life o God.   How magnificent you are in your ways Lord a God who does not make himself hard to find, one who revels himself, make your self know and  yet how amazing we miss you.   How can that be?  I guess the greatest miss is the missing of your incarnate self amongst the sons of men, a blazing view at birth, heaven heralds and then the journey of life but to many a guy on a colt, a carpenter from….    Blazed across the sky with angelic choirs but world missed you, people missed you, distractions occupied them and you where not seen.     Distractions occupy us too but let your grace not allow us to miss you!

Creation that truly was an announcement a blazing into view, a bursting through from the unseen to the seen, coming from another dimension that is inside of God. What a way of writing your self across the sky stars, moon, sun etc., I think we missed the announcement as we get caught on the arguments rather than the arrival.   The arguments on creation or evolution or even functional matters of who first man or woman but it could have been what David saw here an announcement of arrival, of intent, of purpose of places to be and things to-do.

He enters there is no shyness no withdrawn appearing with Him but full throttle announcement and we have been arguing what it was ever since.   It was a Divine Arrival!   A blazing into VIEW

Even when second Adam arrived starburst, angelic choir, sighs in the sky burst, fireworks and we miss it.    How can we see your blazing into view my Lord?       How can we train the eye to see the coming of our King?       How can we see you arriving so to speak in our circumstance, our lives with a blazing view nota trickle or a may be?

Is this again our challenge a coming King and the King can be lost and not seen etc.

NASB translation says it like this   2 Out of Zion, the perfection (completeness, perfection, made perfect)[2] of beauty, God has shone (“shew thyself” once, and “light” once. 1 to shine, shine forth or out, cause to shine, send out beams. to shine out, shine forth, send out beams. to cause to shine.) forth.    3 May our God come and not keep silence; Fire devours before Him, And it is very tempestuous around Him.

The role of the people of God, the aim to be the “…perfection of beauty…” the need to catch the character of the Father to display him so that “…out of Zion…”, ” …he has shone forth…” o why, o why is it my Lord we have the down casters rather than those who will work for the perfection of beauty.   Giving your life to participate in bring about “…the perfection of beauty…” What Is this so we can bring it about that you might shine for the o Lord

Zion is now the abode of God.    A dazzling blaze of light is the symbol of his presence.      The poet is anxious for God to come near and declare his will.     Lightning’s and storm are the outward symbols which express his coming.   He is a consuming fire (cf. Deut 4:24) devouring his enemies.   He is an irresistible whirlwind sweeping them away like chaff Sifre in Deuteronomy… He shined forth from Mount Paran: There are four occasions when God shines forth …

The fourth will occur in the days of the Messiah, as it is said, Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined forth

Deut 33:2   He said, “The Lord came from Sinai, And dawned on them from Seir; He shone forth from Mount Paran, And He came from the midst of ten thousand holy ones; At His right hand there was flashing lightning for them.

Job 11:17 “Your 1life would be brighter than noonday; Darkness would be like the morning.  

Psalm 80:1 Oh, give ear, Shepherd of Israel,You who lead Joseph like a flock; You who care enthroned above the cherubim, shine forth!

 Matt 13:43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

SO WHAT FOR ME?

Train your eye to be open to the Blazing arrivals of the Father, become aware, cultivate the awareness of his moving and his aim always to arrive

We are to be “…the light on the Hill…” Matt 5 stop putting on to another person or another time, he has resided in the midst of us and we now be his nature in life days

Recognise my distraction, my chosen distractions and one that comes to ensure they will not allow me to miss the moment filled  with a blazing view

Work to become the people of his perfected beauty to our world, develop my life

” – “…Between the Times, a hyphen between two dates!

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Far Reaching

” –  ” will you be willing to put your trust in God… even when nothing is happening?

Acts 1:12-26, what a passage when people’s’ worlds turn up side down then a promise “…wait until…” what did they expect?    they had become quite aware of the unexpected by now.   Who is going to come?   Is this what we are waiting for the “…promise…”.   O the topsy-turvy times of following Jesus.      These two things seem to go together, wait and promise, wait and promise, can you hear them it’s on its way, but all you can shout is WHEN?

How many times do we go through this emotional roller-coaster, how many times are we left to our own devices? it seems like he is there,  we see and hear him, then silence and what do we do?   does it sound familiar,  all you have to do is wait!

I focused on the question of whether the 120 disciples in the upper room did the right thing in choosing Matthias as Judas as successor. Hey I am not going to bring a judgement, just a reflection and a question that poses itself over our lives.  They were “between the times“—following Jesus’ ascent and before the Holy Spirit’s descent.    Between times, have you ever thought of people’s’ graves or epitaphs “David Smith 1934 – 1998,  the person’s whole life is concluded with  a hyphen.   all you have done, all you hoped for, all you waited for summed up in ” – “.  How long is yours?  ” – ” what have you done?  ” – ” sums it all up, we are all marked with the same mark are we not? at the end of the day a ” – “.   So what happened in your ” – ” did it all just roll by,  did some one take hold of your life and formulate it, or did you design your own ” – “?.

Between times, between two dates I wonder what are life’s’ joys, trials, advances and successes and of course some set backs,  where are the places and times when God  shows himself?   I think it all comes down to how I conduct myself in the between times.

Consider these thoughts:

  • When nothing is happening we often tend to make things happen. The disciples had no direction or instruction to do what they did, that I can see, to choose Judas’ successor. The 120 may have felt a need to do something during the time they were waiting for the promise of the Father (see Acts 1:4).    Been there?  Abraham was….. and in that between time was when he agreed on a plan to produce a son?
  • When we get simple instructions from God we should take them with both hands. Their instructions were clear and simple: Don’t leave Jerusalem, and wait.     Complicated or what?   there must be more we say inside our selves!
  • When nothing is happening but we are obedient, it is God’s problem, not ours.

When I’m in South Africa I am asked,  when in the UK I am asked, in the USA I am asked…..”What are you seeing amongst the churches in this nation or that one today?”  “What is God doing in UK, Africa, Asia?”    We have great pockets of God at work right in front of us along with behind the scenes, many will say your missing it if don’t you know about this place or that ministry?……But the the answer is: “Not a lot these days”, now before you go down my throat and defend what your involved with, this is not a denial what God is working in lives and places but let me say something,  Certainly when you compare what is happening to what is coming! If we sum up whats happening in light of what God has  promised, we have to get real.     I thank God for bright spots in the world, the places where God is manifesting his rule and his power, the great testimonies of his love and grace don’t misunderstand me!   But as the saying goes, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

I think we are somewhat in the position of the 120, God is working and yet we still  have to be obedient to wait and to work — between the times. The awakening that will shake the world has not yet emerged.    But boy can you feel it rising, we call for a wave of God, deep movings of God to be seen, evident on every shore of every country.   I long to see a moving of God, not just captured in one place where the Christian world runs to, to see, copy and glean from, but  what i call a NOAH revival when the deeps open up and the rain from on high meet and the whole world at one time is flooded with God himself, for this must be revival “God Himself” this is my definition……. when every historic well, every visitation of the past, every uncompleted work of God on earth explodes together when no man or movement can take it up and market it, or promote it as a product of a ministry or a place, but God himself comes to all these places at one time Azusa, South Wales, Hebrides…. on and on the list goes, where God came himself……. and now they all break-forth at one time no one but God will own that!   then we will see a restorative work to herald the Christ, a restorative work of God!   So between times let us do all we have been told, being attentive, obedient, which at the end of the day is true worship is it not, to sing songs is a wonderful medium to communicate heart and emotions by but with our obedient hearts its just singing, with obedience its powerful, while looking for the promise that is coming.

Between Times!

Weather Challenges – Ready not Reluctant

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Clouds roll in!

Strange “weather patterns” moved in to the Cape area where we live when in South Africa, from our house we look across to the Stand, a sea front town and look down off a mountain to a harbour along with a small town called Gordons Bay, to the side of the harbour a ‘blue flag’ beach called Bikini Beach, the name passes comment to its size and the flag status to its safety from shark attacks and cleanliness.    Well we have lost them all, due to sea mist over the last three days, they disappeared under a white blanket.  As a matter of fact as I sit writing this it’s happening for the third day in row, right in front of me.  A hanging white mist separating two worlds.   One world stands in sunlight warming everything up and is very inviting, the other world in a dimly lit damp cold atmosphere, uninviting.   In the mist the temperature drops to 17.5 C and felt really cold and clammy, outside of the mist its temperatures rise to 27.5 C warm and bright.

As we drive along the roads we have a choice of entering into the clammy, damp, clouded world of the mist or to stay in the sun soaked world where its bright, warm and has blue sky, the contrast is so dramatic.   The change that confronts you on every level is quite something.   Naturally speaking I want to stay in the warm where it seems safe and your sight lines are clear, seeing with the ability to see distance there, familiar and understood the world of the sunny land.     Some times we have to drive into the mist and its like being in a ‘pea soup’ as they once called fog in London many years ago.
In the land of mist it’s all change, the familiar becomes an unfamiliar world we have to drive at a slow speed to even enable us to stay on the road, to make sure that we stay within the accepted direction.  The familiar surroundings with a little mist which changes it all, it removes our ability to depend on the usual and thrusts us into a world of learning new trust.   My physical senses have to be heightened, my sight, my hearing all have to be applied more intentionally and now I don’t have a choice as my house has been enveloped into the mist, so in order to get home, to where I belong I need to trust.
I don’t think moving into a mist where life becomes unclear and changes are afoot is unusual     As I look through the scriptures I find 151 references to clouds in the NASB version, clouds appear for different reasons.    But some speak right into my aim of my writing, the first reference we come across brings significance to clouds, mist and sets some great discoveries into the clouds if we will only take a look.
Genesis 9:12

God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations;

13 I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.

It is a challenge to enter into the dimly damp uninviting world    Although amazing, set in the clouds there are important indicators, signs in a world that we have to let go of the usual places, where we can order and control, and  come into the communion with God, where we let go and see what will be opened up to us.   A world where Covenant signs are seen, where we are so out on a limb, some times feeling insecure with nothing around to take hold of, yet God in his love to you and me exposes his Covenant ways, marking us out with a sign in the midst of mist!

A sign that will stay never mind what the situation or conditions surrounding you and I, a sign that marks us out, a sign that marks us out not to have life as usual but to participate in the adventure of a Covenant God – come on into the mist you will see better once in and we are transformed to look differently.
Exodus 20:21 tells me of the life style that Moses has taken on, a way that makes the readiness to enter into the cloud environment, as if once been there in that place of transformation or transfiguration there is a readiness to let go and enter in to let our eyes be confused the senses be confused that we look to see and hear the things that really matter, Gods view-point on the matters of life.    Moses entered into the “thick cloud” a place of transformation, of intimate conversation, of seeing worlds to come, a coming Kingdom that is arriving in our world today, shaking and rattling life as we know it, as a God – Christ focused world emerges in our world from the “thick cloud”.   Life in the mist, is to be at home in the view from God’s perspective!
More of Moses mist, cloud experiences

Misty, Misty, Misty!

Exodus 24:15 Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.     16 The glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud.      17 And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the mountain top.     18 Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up to the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

This is an common story,  mist and clouds appear in the saints experience, we have to be ready, rather than reluctant to participate.

My encouragement to you is to enter the world of the unfamiliar from the familiar, make it an experience, that my trust gets lost in the Christ and not in the world of my control.   That I am willing for my sight and my feelings to be adjusted so that my paradigms can be transformed.   For Psalm 91:1, 2 tells me that in this environment “cloud” is where the Lord is enthroned.  In the place of change the place of let go the place of a new reference point.    But I have to be ready to let go of my existing world frame to catch the necessary impact.
What more was it for the three disciples accounted for in the experience of the cloud environment when their reference point of life was firmly adjusted.   As the participated and where brought into the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, they were told to say nothing!   My whole of life has been given a new reference point and I must hold it in my heart!
For the clouds of Mark 9 and Luke 9 overshadowed them, here they saw a new vista, they heard a new voice, a confirming voice, a Fathers voice spoken.   O yes I know they did not get it all as they were eager to build alters and required gentle adjustment, but surely their viewpoint was adjusted.
A place where their entire world was taken from them and a new world forcibly put into their minds and memories.   For in this cloud a VOICE came, perhaps a “..bow…”  (Gen. 9:12,13) a sign of covenant they heard set into the cloud, there are things to listen to as we are willing to let go.    They looked around and saw no one their eyes trained for different seeing as they let go and embraced this environment of the Father
O yes fear was certainly an aspect as they had to depart from one paradigm to another here, God is constantly inviting us into a place to have to trust him and allow him to change our paradigms.   It seems that only a voice in the mist, the unclear, can help any one of us.   Be careful that we don’t run around listening for voices, looking for some one to say some thing when what we need is one voice to speak peace – covenant love – bring sight to the reality of Gods working in the middle of when we cannot see, or hear and all change is happening.   Coming out of the cloud there will be change, you can guarantee that,  we had better “…listen to him…”.
The emotion will run high, the adrenalin will flow, the thoughts of ‘God help me’ clear my eyes o God to see, will all be there in our cries.     The familiar is under scrutiny and is demanding we reach for the unfamiliar.   Be careful we don’t bring the familiar to secure and settle the unfamiliar at this stage.    Its walking a different way!
Never been this way before it’s a misty foggy, way it is like we don’t know what’s going to appear next out of the mist as the nature of this kind of transformation, comes with no warning, you don’t see it coming but you have to settle trust and peace long before.
One lesson is that what you are going for or travelling towards had better be on the inside of you at this stage, as you cannot depend on natural eyesight here.   It’s a deep encounter inside of you time, that you walk away from, never to depend on the familiar again,  but now you have graduated to trust the inside of yourself, more so, a transformation takes place and you are taken out of the mundane into the adventure of being led by the Holy Spirit

In all this my body tells me I want to stay in the sun where its warm I don’t want to step away from the comfort, yet I know I have to step to the unfamiliar trusting the Father.  Knowing it’s about a new level, Sandra often ministers that every new level needs a new encounter a transfiguration to take us into the order God wants us in.     My sight has to change, my peripheral vision my long-term view to see anew, with sharp insight for the moment I now live in!           A new environment awaits us all ever day, every morning as we wake it’s another day to set out for transformations, transfiguration to see and be different, to come from the mist and to walk away knowing and understanding a little more, fully aware that another day will come and invite us again into that transfiguration, enabling  God to bring about his goal in the earth through us. Give yourself to a misty, cloudy new encounter!   What got you here worked and we can celebrate all but we also know it will not get us through tomorrows challenges, yet in the mist/cloud we will hear a voice, see a new way and return more ready for the challenge, walking with a people who too have been trained in the mist!.

To be ready not reluctant to embrace the unfamiliar over the familiar, A New environment