Other Thoughts

“To this end…” still working towards it

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Community under canvas Our journey is continuing on this time I will deal with only one step, it’s so important in a disconnected society, a society that is not aware of anyone else but of self, that this step be prayed and worked through, enjoy considering.   To be a people of love and display to our world people being TOGETHER

Step Seven COMMUNITY LIVING

I don’t know whether it was my upbringing as a child in the Welsh Valleys, where lives were thrown in on each other and things were shared or what, but I have never found community living a problem, and long to see it at every level. I am not talking about a commune but a community where no one has need and each person is considered and looked after, where people are aware of others around them rather than just self.

I have been able to adapt easily to living with a crowd as long as there has been some place – all I’ve needed was a bedroom – to pull aside and be alone with God for a time.     Apart from that, the difference of temperaments and personality were no great issues for me.

Here are some of the things I have learned in community with others:

1. Don’t take things too seriously. It is amazing how we can make mountains out of mole hills, and little issues assume great importance. This is where many relationships have foundered and fellowship been broken. Many things are best over-looked and forgotten by the immediate release of forgiveness and love at the time.

2. People respond to praise. Don’t be afraid to praise others. This acknowledges, honours’, and builds men up. Make room in your heart for appreciation of others.

3. Everybody loves to be loved and so the time taken, word spoken, gesture made, effectively communicates our appreciation and love for people,

4. Make room for others. Don’t look for ways to promote yourself by seeking prominence. Make room for other people respond to those who have made room for them.    Give them scope in your life, fellowship, responsibilities.     Let them try things out for themselves, and ‘have a go’.

5. Keep short accounts. If there is a breakdown of fellowship deal with it quickly – Get rid of it before it widens. It is the accumulation of small things that creates the big problems. Just as it is the silt that comes down with the river that forms the mud bank that eventually holds the waters back.

6 – Don’t be afraid to confront. Don’t look for confrontation, but neither should you run from it where it is necessary for the saving of the person or situation. Paul disliked confrontation but was not afraid to stand up to Peter when a fundamental issue of the gospel was at stake. It is better to be wounded by your friends than destroyed by your enemies.

7. Grace and faith. Serve up, in every relationship with people, great dollops of grace and faith. These are the twins of all progress and achievement in relationships.

8. Be loyal to men and women and people will be loyal to you – the end time will be characterized by this breaking down (2 Tim.3:4) amongst other things.     All the more reason to shine as a light in a dark place in respect to keeping covenant.

9. Love the brethren. By this I mean demonstrably so. Let your feelings become tangible in this respect.

10. Serve one another. Do little things – learn to hump the tables around. Learn to look after each others needs, be a servant and in this way you encourage others to serve, particularly be a Joshua to a Moses somewhere.

These principles hold good as strengthening bonds to secure harmony inside the relationships of the wider community of the church.     It would be wonderful if our Christian experience was only a series of positive virtues.      Unfortunately I have been both a victim and perpetrator of some negative issues also.

 

“To this End…” its not the end yet

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Eliezar & RebeccaThe steps continue on and on, step by step we are taking ground the old song said, advance well here is another step which is very significant in any life that has a desire to keep faithful to the call of God on your life.

Step six THE  POWER OF DISCIPLESHIP

I can recall that for many nights over a long period I was in the home of one gracious family constantly.     In retrospect I see this was grossly selfish on my part being inconsiderate of thire needs of privacy and family life.    It also caused me to miss out in other areas of life that should have been in my consideration, such as my relationship and responsibility to my family.

I was in needed at that time of moulding and forming to take up my responsibilities.   I have seen over the years the requirement for all to be formed, taking the good of character and bringing it through, changing for the better the negative, some times the destructive elements of our lives.    It was in my 20th year that I first met with someone who would involved themselves in my life for my good.   It was at every level the transformation began in me through their words and love, not only inner character being affected, also the way I physically looked, my hair, I had some then, my body shape, I had too much, my handling of money and of course my handling of relationships and responsibilities.  The experience was so necessary as I was being empowering for where I am now today.    This continued for many years and I am eternally grateful for the grace of those people who took the time and responsibilities to affect my life.     The Power of Discipleship had begun its process and I had to stay with the course.   We experience discipleship though so many levels, friends “…faithful are the wounds of a friend…” the Proverb says, mentors “…we have many mentors or teachers…”, and fathers.

I learned the truth of being truly affected by a true spiritual father as a father took real interest in my life and family.    At first I did not realize I was being fathered, it was natural, and fathering terms were not so popular then.       As this spiritual father invested belief into me, he probably I would say most definitely believed in me more than I did initially in my self.    Once a real spiritual father takes hold of you things look different and take on a different direction, be careful there are many around that promote themselves as fathers however I am not sure if when you are one you need not promote anything, just be a father it will be plain.

Once begin touched by a true father I think I can say like the Apostle Paul “…there are not many fathers…” but there are “…many mentors, teachers…”.    My wife used to say of my relationship with Bryn Jones, who fathered me for many years, a true fathering gift to the people of God, that I was more married to Bryn than her, this was not from a hurt or disappointment but from a joy.    Sandra was able to release me to that given-ness and service of a father, so we did it together.

I was discipled by someone who believed in me more that I did in myself, a real father, It was not only him but there were others.    I recall Arthur Wallis a great man of God, taking me aside to mentor me on prayer.    Discipling me not only in what to say but developing a conversation with the Father, making it intimate.     The driver’s seat of my car or the back seat of another cars became my discipleship school and college.    Along with being thrust into relationship by association with the fathers and thrust into rooms that I was amazed to be in while ask myself under my breath “…what on earth am I doing here?”, only now to realize it was discipleship in action, fathering at its best, I was happening for my future.

Through these relationships over decades I was blessed, encouraged and provoked.    One of them, knowing I wanted to be carrying the word of God took me under his wing in what I consider a hard school for me, getting me to believe in the God in me and therefore myself.   He taught me to stand without fear among the crowds.   He would push me out of my comfort zone.   I recall traveling to a major conference with 2/300 people in attendance, I was there to carry bags, handkerchiefs and water.    When one morning he was due to speak when he announced he was not coming out that day asked I go and inform the conference host that an other speaker would take his place.   When I protested and said, “…they are excepting you who else…”, he announced “…tell them its you…”, comfort zone departure or what.   I knew how to carry water and bags but 2/3000 people!

More than anything I drew from what these men were.  I liked their ruggedness and strengths, their openness and laughter.   I liked the fact that they were ordinary and yet deeply spiritual.    These men stand out as having had a hand in shaping my life.     Theirs were the voices that helped crystallize my life values and concepts.    They prayed and patiently worked on me using the Word, while Believing God would use me one day, they did much work into my life when I did not see it or realize it.

A number of these men have gone home to be with God, others are still living.     But all have extended their days – without knowing it – within my life, legacy is discipleship.

You may recall Abraham commissioning Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac.  Eliezer said to go the one that will feed in serving the camels at the well let her be the woman, sure enough along came Rebecca Gen. 24:15.    Actually the camels she served became the mode of transport to her destiny.   Serving others will in turn be those who carry you to your destiny.  Serving is not servitude, serving someone is not being abused or being dominated it’s a process we all go through with being mentored or fathered. True mentors and especially fathers, I discovered actually serve you, in carrying you to destiny.    So find a camel to serve, not a great picture may be but a good truth, giving yourself will lead you to your destiny, giving is a deep relational experience, it will mean great faithfulness and honour on your part.

The following are some of the areas of life for which I am indebted to them.     I didn’t see all these aspects in anyone single individual, but rather this is a composite picture of spiritual values gleaned from them all.

1. Love God supremely – everything else in life orbits around Him. He is to be the centre of our affections as much as the source of our life.

2. Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness first – it is not my selfish desires in life that count, but what promotes His Kingdom and expresses his righteousness that should be sought first.

3. Total commitment of life – to following Christ. To “deny ourselves and take up our cross” is simply that – a total denial of self interests, and full commitment to the pursuit of His interests

4. Backbone – being father by men meant for me to be a “man’s man”- To have backbone.      To stand up in life and learn to cope with it.      Not merely to hang on, but to triumph.

5. Prayer – nothing of significance happens without someone having prayed it through.     I learned the “fervent” prayer life with a group of men, 90% of whom were in their 50-60s.      We stormed the enemies’ strongholds with great shouts of praise and threw down his resistance with holy anger.     Our meetings were very tearful, noisy and filled with the loud praises of God.    We encountered the supernatural and school each other in that place, showed each other how to see God how to hear God how to sense God.

6. To yield to the Spirit – that all my actions and attitudes are to be ruled by the Spirit.    To know His anointing (more later on this subject) meant obedience to the Spirit.

7. A Worldwide Revival – the only hope of the Church ever fully accomplishing the purpose of God in a single generation is twinned to the hope of the greatest spiritual visitation of all time coming upon such a generation.

8. Do everything with excellence – seeking to excel is seeking to be excellent.     For too long Christianity has given shoddy, substandard presentations of It’s message.     During the last 25-30 years men have rightly embarked on a new pursuit of excellence in order that the jewel of Christ be made more wonderfully obvious by its presentation.

9. Love His Church – to give oneself for it just as He gave Himself for it. This is not the mixtures church of corrupt religion, but the church of the Living God, the redeemed of the Lord. Giving ourselves for this church means our time, energy, money, thinking, and often the forfeiting of legitimate leisure pursuits.

10. God rules supreme – That there is an unchanging, unalterable purpose at work in the history of humankind, and that nothing lies outside his ability to change, maneuver or control situations, people or nations in pursuit of this – Gods purpose.

11. Bow to take criticism – and not “cave in”, so that others do not dominate your faith. This is achieved by Reconsidering “Him who endured” (Heb.12:3) and fixing ones hope in what lies ahead.

12. Love people despite – what they have done, said or schemed against us. The majority of them are not engaged in a malicious personal vendetta, but in their weakness have opened themselves to the control of the powers of darkness. Our ‘wrestling is not with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers’  (Eph . I 6:12)

13. To stand firm – when everything is pressing you to change. Never compromise the truth merely to curry favour or gain some temporary respite or advantage from those who mean no good to the gospel.

On the other hand, in nonessential areas to be always open to compromise in order to attain a higher good. Some things are negotiable others not – wisdom is in knowing the difference.

14. To be nonreligious – I do not mean unrighteous. I don’t mean opt out of the “true religion that is undefiled”, but rather to be free of the trappings of liturgy, ecclesiasticism, institutionalism, and instead enjoy the free, spontaneous life of God this is ‘life more abundant’.

15. Live and move in faith – to be able to say as Paul said, “I believe God”. Not in Him, but Him.     This means that you are not leaning on man but dependent fully on the faithfulness of God for your existence and progress.

16. Give the Word of God place – We are instructed by His word in every area of living. It measures our attitudes, convictions, purpose and motive. It continues to feed, search, guide, correct and protect us in life.

17. Be a man of deep devotion to Him – learning to laugh and be natural, yet having a deep devotional walk with God.

18. Giving – that one is not miserly or skimpy, but generous in all things, realizing it is the secret of receiving so much.

19. Love people – it is a cold, impersonal, hurting world. Just loving people as they are, is step one to change in them.  Our life is people, People matter more than things.

20. World Mission – that there is no way I can close my eyes to the vast under-evangelized areas of the world. The world is our parish. We are the seed of Abraham, and as the covenant people of promise destined to be a world blessing.

21. Embrace the disciplines of God – He can minister to me by command, counsel, or circumstances, using any or all as necessary to achieve His objective in my life.

“To this end…”, more to follow

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Moulded in the potters hands

Moulded in the potters hands

28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature inChrist.

29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

(Col 1:28-29)

The Next Step, which is the second on this topic is SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES 

Turning my inner person to God and giving time, over the years many have used different names to call for this process such as “Devotional time” or “Quiet Times”.    Some even have seen liberty as a reason to be free form a discipline and used the thinking not to develop the intimate times with God.       Let me say from the onset without developing these regular, intimate moments with God one will not advance, neither is it a religious action but a real love, developing an adventure of hearing the Father.

The natural progression of fellowship leads you to a disciplined development of intimacy through spending times away, aside with God, the Psalmist said evening and morning he did it, quiet times.     Now all our faith is learning that the Father wants responsive followers,  not people living by the letter of the law, so this ‘quiet time’ is not a duty but an outflow of deep thanks, manifest in time given to be intimate, never due but an appreciation and response.       As for me, if I do not create these moments I feel starved and hungry.      My children, when younger, would say it was evident in my ways or life’s conduct towards them if I had neglected that time with the Father.    Let me re state it again although daily times when followed as routine or obligation have been discredited as legalistic, it is nevertheless true that the absence of seasons of quietness with God will eventually lead to poverty of soul and vulnerability.

Again, looking back over the years I see the practice of a daily time of meditation as one of the greatest strengths in the development of my spiritual life.      I look upon it not as a time to get something to say or preach but a conversation between me and the Godhead for us together.    For these times to be seen as necessary as eating, taking in nourishment to the body so these times of discipline are to my whole being.       Over the years I have looked upon it as times of just filling up a kit bag for a long journey, storing insights, Holy Spirit utterances and directions, never knowing when or what the Holy Spirit will draw from that resource we placed into the kit bag for life some time ago.    For the Father to mould me more and more into Gods image.    Although in recent years I have modified my approach, I remain convinced they were vital to fellowship with God.

The reading and marking of the Word of God

God’s life works powerfully in those who love the Word.     It reads, speaks, grips and provokes you. There is so much that the word of God does in you that nothing else could – preachers could never produce what the Spirit does through the Word.     It is this opening of my life and mind to its truth and challenges that has proved indispensable to personal development.

I turn to the word of God as I turn to a person knowing that this person wants to talk with me, I love 1 Cor 2:9, 10 that says for me, God is searching God, to bring out the deep things of God to show and present them to me.   Therefore every time I turn to word it is an adventure and excitement, I feel the thrill, what about you, revelations come when we do, honestly, try it is a promise.

I read the Word simply, in an attitude of faith.      I don’t look for it’s difficulties or problems, I don’t concern myself with the arguments of author ship or authenticity of historical detail.    I first read the Word to let it read me.    I take what is obvious from the surface, apply that and rejoice in it.     My marking system – underlining etc., reinforces its impact on my mind.      Today I have hundreds of notes daily devotions in my computer stored for either me or some one else in later years may wish to mull over them.

When studying the Word more earnestly for a given purpose, I give myself to research as to the authorship, the background of the principal parties concerned.       The circumstances of the nation at the time, the issues that are primarily being addressed etc.      But my first approach to the Word is to get to know God by allowing its revelation to minister to my life.    It is God the Father making known his nature, it is the ever arriving God, a self-reveling Father eager to make known to reward and give gifts.        Choice of emotions?????? this is not what you are considering….

Step Three – You CHOICE OF FRIENDS is vital to ongoing spiritual progress.      

It was the awareness of this that made me face up to my first series of difficult choices.     These were to affect my relationship with my former friends in the world.

Their way of life was now so different from my own.     I had witnessed effectively amongst them to the point where those open to Christ and change had already been converted.      Finally I was faced with the difficult choice concerning those who had no intention of changing.      I became convinced that continued companionship with some of them would eventually lead to the compromising of spiritual values, and that meanwhile  I would be under constant pressure to conform to their behaviour and activities.

From early days I had to make the decision, I recall some who helped me, that after deciding to follow Christ they used to cross the road directly in front of me, in order not to entertain meeting me, once passed they would cross back to the original side, it was challenging at the time as we all like being wanted or liked but then it helped me to see choices in relationships are so important.    Let me add a caveat, it is not rejection or exclusivity we cannot do that in the gospel of the Kingdom, we are not to be exclusive, the Kingdom of God makes us at every hand inclusive and I must demonstrate that, it is just knowing where and how I grow through the relationships around me, while accepting and loving every one.

Then there were the “carnal Christians”, not sure what that means any longer some times?      You understand those who seek their own, those who have themselves at their centre only, those who are looking to add the things of the present to themselves for positions or stature, not seeking the Kingdom of God as predominant view.   I met many in my early experience.    It became clear to me that continued company with these would prove almost as damaging.      Fellowship was based upon the sharing of discontent, mutual grumbles, ill-feeling, gossip, argument, contentious discussions and soulish issues such as “preacher for lunch”, and “destructive sermon analysis”, running people l down in the light of “being honest”, being divisive and colouring my view of others, Inflicting their personal agenda on people

Alternatively, there was the prospect of companionship with those whose heart was towards God.     Who loved God as I loved the Father, who were intent on making progress in their spiritual lives while pursuing their destiny.

I decided these were the companions I should cultivate, for their fellowship would help sharpen my spiritual insights and provoke me towards maturity.

I am told which I am sure its true that less is best for a blog although I don’t know how to lean this or better still practice the lesson today however I am going to head the encouragement allowing you to mull my comments on adding and advancing your journey into God.

I pray that you will develop deeper in 2013 your Spiritual Discipline along with wisdom, not emotion in your choice of friends while recalling Part One of “To this end…” with developing that fellowship with God who is eager for the relationship.

Happy journeys into Christ, great adventures of the Holy Spirit and deeper into God in 2013

To this end…

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Donkey power

28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

(Col 1:28-29)

Paul seemed to have been so radical impacted by a short fall during his life, he was so foundation-ally affected, transformed by his falling off a donkey encounter.   As he travelled about his business he lost his grip of the reigns, slipped off the back and wham hit the floor.   Hitting what ever part of his body first on a hard dusty well trodden roadway.   It was not stars he saw around his injured head  but he saw an arrival of God, that is as held within the name Yahweh the “ever arriving one”, the God who came and introduced him not to a theology or r even religion and its forms, but to his very own nature the seeing of the nature of God.   Just as God is introduced to us in Genesis his very nature rushed into Paul’s void in his life.    You might asked how do you know he had a void, let me suggest any one who required  a letter to give him the right to conduct himself indicated he had not found himself, maybe?

Light and sound, a voice God nature arrives, Paul on hearing the sounds of God just as creation heard the sounds of God “light be”, so Paul’s short fall some 1 to 1.5 meters off the shoulders of a short animal was a huge distance in his inner being.    It’s amazing to some such a small incident for some can be so huge for others.   I wonder what was your short fall into a whole new life?

Paul heard the voice of Christ asking, “Why do you persecute me” and some 20 years on, the impact was so evidently foundational to his life that it comes across in him testifying before King Agrippa, the encounter was still powerful to him, still living as the narrative shows, there was still life communicating and conviction pulsating from it to the point in “nearly persuade” the king zeal communicated raise zeal in another.

It certainly was not a take it or leave it approach, Paul said, I have based my whole life’s action, my decisions and direction were all moulded from the foundation of his encounter with Christ and not by his own life’s development, his encounter developed his life!   Now that’s a choice for us, can we bring our life, relationships, money and how we use our resources, our focus and priorities, in line with our meeting Jesus, can we choose to be transformed by our onward encounters?

The narrative of Paul’s life indicates to us that something should happen to every one of us, when we truly encounter Christ.   The narrative emphasizes that it is certainly not about the emotions or ecstasy of the moment but about what is impregnated into our lives, causing us to change.

It is not just about capturing or thoughts or intellect but impregnating deep within us, who we are, if you and I have met Jesus, that is what actually happened, a “light be” exploded in us, for some it had immediate implications, while for others it might take a period of time for the light to make its course to transform our foundation.

There is an impregnating of seed of life, in a word, in a donkey fall, or what ever is yours, the seed of the restoring of the image and likeness to bring about a burden and a breakthrough.

Each one of us have our own “burden”,  we sometimes refer to this as our “call” or “vision”.     That which radically changes everything, that which first asks of us, then demands that our every decision and direction aligns towards the vision.   In this way it will fill out your understanding and conviction as to what God has destined you to pursue in life.

What I am seeking to give to you written here as principles of life in God, are merely a packet of seed.   Seed for you to plant and nurture if they are to become fruitful in your life.  Following are simple steps to feed, take hold of the burden that has impregnated, come to reside to bring our live sot a place to make it matter to make our lives count

First Step – THE DEVELOPMENT OF FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD

My enjoyment of fellowship with God started in the initial wave of gratitude for forgiveness which resulted in great joy within me, I was full of praise and adoration for God OUR Father,

In retrospect I see that openness to God and emotional spontaneity were two of the most vital aspects of my early life that have continued to prove fruitful and cause me to progress.

By “openness to God” I mean an attitude of:

  1. Expectation – God can do anything, at any time, in any way, in any place that I am.
  2. Hunger and thirst for God, that is pulling on God, doing all I can to set my hope, my desire, my focus, my thinking on God.   Many older Christ followers would use the term your “first cause”, to hunger and thirst is to make God my first cause and shape my life according to the first cause I see
  3. A heart ready and willing to respond obediently to anything God might do or say.

I experienced enlargement of my expectation as a result of what God did in response to my openness.     It has become an endless cycle of blessing and increase.

By “emotional Spontaneity” I mean learning to laugh and cry, rejoice and repent, pray and praise, which has developed in me a responsive heart to God.      Our emotions are to be cultivated even though they are still to be controlled.      People respond to emotion more than to exploitation.      This is why, if there are two able preachers in the same vicinity, one excellent in teaching the other very caring and feeling for the people, it has been noted the one who is most likely to have the people deeply joined is the person of emotion rather than explanation.

Developing the emotions makes us sensitive to God’s workings, and leads to knowing God intuitively (in the heart). As yet the mind remains largely uninformed, and although this is not desirable as an ongoing thing, it is certainly our initial experience.

Having said this about the emotions, it is equally true that we need an informed faith.      Paul prayed that the “eyes of your understanding be opened” (Eph.l :18).      Feelings will change, whereas understanding will deepen convictions.        As understanding is built-in so we are built up, which leads us now to spiritual discipline.

It is the cultivation of a disciplined way of life that prepares us for a revelation of God.

Next time we shall visit the thoughts of Spiritual Disciplines.            In the mean time let me encourage you to find some donkeys to take a short fall to let the ever arriving God arrive and light fill you again and again.

Love of the Father – Why?

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father's loveMy reason for writing today is purely as an appeal that our world might be overwhelmed by the LOVE of God.   That our society might be transformed by the LOVE of God.   That the church might demonstrate “that all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35 NASB)

We have all become recipients of the Love of the Father, the Love of God, the Fathers Love which ever way we say it, it really does not matter as long as we are affected and transformed by this LOVE and continue to transform our world through this love.    A Love that brings security, love that brings belonging, love that so imbibes my being that overwhelms us, accepts, propels and is making us like God.

May the love of God overwhelm us daily and enable us to be so impacted, putting us the right way up in order that we become the Love of the Father to our neighbours, friends, family, society and world, being the love of God in the streets of life.

We are introduced in Genesis 1 to “light” this light, the light of God is seven times brighter than the sun, the scriptures tell us, it is the essence of the Father God.  A light that was there days before the orbs of light, sun and moon were created, this is God.  Light breaking into formlessness and void making itself known when there was no essence, transforming all it touched.   This is a specialty of God to pour into empty, nothingness, a dark soup of lostness, God’s essence!   By Matthew 5 the people of God are to be the literal LIGHT on a hill never to be hidden, we have become the very essence of God in our world.   Light carriers, so it is to be with the essence of God in every term,  as God is LIGHT and LOVE, the LOVE that its seen in us and through us,  extending out from us.   Love is expansive and ever-increasing, perhaps we can see this in this instance, when we are told in Isaiah 9:7 “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,”  his government, is his love extending just like God.   This Father the God of all is the ever arriving God, Gods love is ever arriving and so we are to love with an ever arriving love.    Perhaps that is a better way of looking at Romans 5:5 “…the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us…”, it is ever arriving to us and through us towards our created world.

I am challenged with what is seemingly happening today the popularising of the flavour of our day in our Christ following walk in making Jesus and his Gospel of the Kingdom part of our consumer society.   It is becoming what I can get, MY feelings, MY destiny, MY wants. MY needs and MY stuff.

I think it was Eugene Peterson who once wrote in “Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading” on the trinity of our modern world and saw it  as my needs, my wants and my feelings  he went on to say

“My needs are non-negotiable. My so-called rights, defined individually, are fundamental to my identity. My need for fulfilment, for expression, for affirmation, for sexual satisfaction, for respect, my need to get my own way – all these provide a foundation to the centrality of me and fortify my self against diminution.

My wants are evidence of my expanding sense of kingdom. I train myself to think big because I am big, important, significant. I am larger than life and so require more and more goods and services, more things and more power. Consumption and acquisition are the new fruits of the spirit.

My feelings are the truth of who I am. Any thing or person who can provide me with ecstasy, with excitement, with joy, with stimulus, with spiritual connection validates my sovereignty. This, of course, involves employing quite a large cast of therapists, travel agents, gadgets and machines, recreations and entertainments to cast out the devils of boredom or loss or discontent – all the feelings that undermine or challenge my self-sovereignty”.

It seems agreeable to be the consumer, being a consumer with the love of God rather than being consumed by the love of God, of the Father, the Fathers Love.      The Love of God presented in order that I have an inner feel good experience, it gets my self loved and its all about my inner feelings rather than being about the maturity of the whole body.    This Love is to come to each of us, to go through us so that is might extend out from us as the LOVE of the Father, touching life around us, loving humanity, loving creation.

What a great lesson of love, Jesus is to us, he explained love fully, what a great attitude he displayed as he was the love of the Father, Fathers love, the love of God, a lesson for us to be just like him.      I think of John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”     Maybe it’s not just talking about our physical life.      Perhaps it is the life we know, the friends we have and loose.      Maybe I show love when I lay down the life we have together to be the bridge for you, to be the servant that enables you, while you walk over me to reach your maturity, it is the love I have to be a friend in helping others when I see a wrong attitude or action.    May be this love shows when you bring a confrontation to me of my wrong ways, may be it is the forgiveness I freely give when you let me down or show unkindness.   Maybe we show no greater love than when we are counted with people who others consider tainted. 

Becoming friends with those who have been cut off, those who we say are judged for their life style.   Being the love of God to the down-and-out, the ones who don’t have anything, the prostitute, the destitute, the sexually different, the social law-breaker, the nobody.   To love here is a defining moment of our life, ministry, and career.       Sure, you may lose a few relationships, unfortunately, but I can’t find a better way of extending or being the love of the Father and loosing relationships for loving like God?   These friends so-called, even these we are to love, as we love all, I doubt they would have cared for me in my failures and spoken in love?    So really, I lost nothing.     If being the love of the Father, being the friend causes some to hate and reject me what can I do but continue to LOVE and extend the essence of God into the fabric of life

The love of the Father says to me and compels me to lay my life down for the fringe, for it is in the fringe God works,  often we think That god is at work in the centre, with the celebrity, those who command, but, I see the scriptures  narrative saying God is in the fringes of life, and seems to be there in greatest power – Love of the Father, the Fathers Love what ever way you say it, extend it into the fringes of people’s lives, and to people who are on  the fringe.   The Davids, the Gideon’s, the Paul’s, the disciples, Jesus himself born in a cave, laid in the feeding trough, being the bread to all.    The Love of the Father from you to others it’s not just about me being but it’s about me extending love of God through me.

Consumer of love or lover of all?   

Consumed by the Father of consumer of ???