powerful words

A Room With A View

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A number of years ago, actually in 1985, a best picture award was given to a film called “A Room with a View.”  it was first a book, penned in 1908 by E M Forster about the culture in Edwardian England, it was a film about a young lady who went to stay in Florence, Italy.   Her stay was in a room with no view; the room was in fact a shadow of her own life.   The film dealt with freedom from institutional religion, growing up, true love, freedom on many levels; it was a romantic optimistic book.    The main character Lucy, during her stay in Italy saw her views of the world change dramatically, as her eyes were opened to a world beyond the “protected life in a Windy Corner”.    OK after saying all that, I admit I never saw the film nor had any desire to see it, as a 20 something young man living in Wales this was not the sort of movie we watched at the time.    This film/book is not the point of this blog either.

How ever I do want to use the thoughts presented and for those of you who know me you will have heard me say time and time again, YOUR VIEW OF GOD DETERMINES HOW WELL YOU LIVE.   It is my strong belief that our freedom, empowerment of life, even my view of myself, is all wrapped up there.   I would even go as far as to say that the way the bible is written is much more about introducing us to a view of God and bringing our world view in line with himself.      The way I see God and the function of his abode is the way that my life gets transformed.    In other words the room of my, life is give a view, a view of God, which radically transforms me.

I am convinced that the Scriptures continually continues to enlarge our view of God, who God is and how God works towards creation, while we are so often a people who reduce God down to our view.   We so often speak of God and present the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a way that we need, for us.   God becomes consumed by a consumer society, always there like a spare tire only used when we have a need, God is presented to be consumed feed me, touch me, it’s all about us, we present God that way, even on occasions presenting God  as a harsh judge, a heavy-handed parent,  yet God wants us to find our view and experience of heaven being aligned with his view and nature.

John tells us in John 1:18 (NASB) that “…he cane to explain the Father” and when the disciples said to Jesus, show us the Father Jesus replied by saying “…who ever has seen me has seen the Father…” I have explained God correctly.    We are still trying to deal with Jesus’ view of gender, his view of leadership, his view of life and what is important in his ‘explanational’ life style.

God, Son and Holy Spirit are ceaselessly lifting us out of room with no view and bringing us to a view of him, which will bring liberty at every level.    My encouragement is to visit your view of God, declare your view and see your liberty increase.    The following list, or glimpses of God i present, are to stimulate you to re think and reconsider the view you have, my hope is  it will  enlarge your view.

While I see that Gods nature, essence, is in two things light and love is necessary that form these two essences we discover the characteristic that God has been determined to be known by and through

I present a number of characteristics which by far are never conclusive but are simply a part of our journey, I write because I have a strong belief that our freedom and liberty is all tied up here with our view of God, it is not in the miracle, or the sign and wonder we live life through, although they are all wonderful, but it is in my view of God that  a revelatory  change takes place and we are freed so lets be free!

MERCY

J.I. Packer once wrote, ‘Knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a man’s heart.’ Certainly it has thrilled the hearts of many through the years.  Gathered here are in following article under “A Room with a View” are some observations my prayer is that your room will have in it that which will bring you out into the wide open places of Gods invitation    I trust you will come upon fresh views on the nature of God, pause to worship him & express your love for Him, the more we know of Him, the more we will love Him.

The self-portrait of His mercy, which God painted for Moses when He declared Himself on Mount Sinai, imprinted itself deeply on the consciousness of God’s people and inspired the faith of future generations of Israelite believers. We find in the following words describing God’s mercy recalled often throughout the Old Testament and at crucial times in people’s lives they are anchored and motivated by these truths in a way that deeply affects their responses to difficulty, failure, and success.

When God’s people are in trouble, needy, or under attack, what do they call to mind? “But you, O LORD, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” (Ps. 86:15). 

When they are moved to celebrate, what do they sing about? “The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love” (Ps. 145:8). 

When God has granted them success, as in the amazing exploit of rebuilding in Nehemiah, they are kept humble by an overwhelming sense of God’s mercy. They had been stubborn and rebellious, stiff-necked and disobedient; “But in your great mercy you did not put an end to them, or abandon them, for you are a gracious and merciful God” (Neh. 9:31). 

It is impossible to read Ezra’s great prayer in Nehemiah 9 without seeing how deeply the conviction of God’s mercy had touched and influenced his thinking. His response to success was rooted in the truths about God’s mercy. ” . . . But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them” (Neh. 9:17). 

There is nothing that can keep us humble like this sense of God’s mercy. It is the great antidote to pride, for pride and a deep awareness of God’s mercy simply cannot coexist.

SO where is God’s mercy for you seen and felt, what action and in what direction of your life can you stop and shout our it is his mercy in evidence at work in my life.    My view of life is coloured and contoured by this great mercy of God towards me.    The exploits we do, the achievement we experience O the great mercy of God.   The challenges we encounter the sadness that comes our way O the great Mercy of God.   Stop for a moment and watch the mercy of God at work.

To come  Glorious, Father, Transcendent, Just, Loving, Redeemer, Mysterious, Good, Holy, Beautiful, Servant, Unchanging

He Stole My Bible again…

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I am not sure how you read your scriptures and what you draw from the arranged letters that are offered to us.    A number of years ago I was presented with a new translation of the scriptures every year, it was a planned and purposeful exchange, so i would change the way i read and listened to what I read.  It took me a few years to realize what was going on, I was a little slow, rather funny really, every year the question came “What bible are you reading?” I offered my translation and by the end of our conversation, in those first days of each new year my old bible walked out of the room and  a new translation was let in return.   Excuse me I said but my notations are in that bible, the reply was “Yes” my comment was  “Hmmm” and his “that’s exactly why I am taking it”.   But it instructed me to read from different a different vantage point the same word, it brought the scriptures alive again as I saw the different angles of the diamond of this book.   It was a challenging lesson initially, then every first of the year meeting I learned to present my old 1-year-old bible and open my hand for the new one to be exchanged.

One of the lessons of reading the Scripture is to grasp the fuller story, the panoramic view of Gods dealings with his people, some times we get so caught up with this and that little thing, and  we have not understood the over all panorama of Gods working, cause and purpose.   I long for more people to catch what God is doing from a distance rather than getting into the minutiae, when we don’t understand the wide aims of his purpose.   For instance You can look at the book of Joshua and see all the in’s and outs – all good stuff walls falling, inheritance gaining, conquering armies, trust and obedience, establishing a people etc.   But one thing that encourages me in the narrative is simple when we get across from the deliverance from Egypt the victory of transferring from supply upon supply, that is food, water, clothes never wearing out etc., to a place, as we enter the promise and realize there is still unfinished business!    The book is the story of unfinished business, the settlement in the land is the account of unfinished business. We often wish it was not so, why did God not do it all?     Perhaps its the issue of God making us partners with him in everything, he has done his bit, now we have to take hold of the unfinished business and bring it to pass “earth becoming like heaven, his likeness and image in you and me.   That’s another blog.

Unfinished business.    Each new episode of life, each new year each new day is the account of unfinished business.

So you wake up each day with unfinished business, not procrastination on yesterday’s stuff but today is the continuation of completing the purpose, the set course that God has for humanity and creation, your story and mine is the story of unfinished business until a generation comes to see Christ filling all things.    The small reading of Scripture can so easily introduce to us a narrative of me and the immediate, yet we are about a course of direction the Father has begun and we are involved in unfinished business.   I wonder what your unfinished business looks like?

Lets’ Keep Moving Hitting the Mark

You cannot get away from Paul’s encouragement to have one goal in mind and heart as we travel through our Christian journey, the goal to become more and more like Christ until ‘he fills all things’ or until he has the pre-eminence in our lives in book of Philippians he says we are to ‘press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus’.    It was with this in mind that we set out every year to so call Hit the Mark, to get entwined with unfinished business of the cause of God.

As ever Now in our journey we take steps forward, to grow from strength to strength, glory-to-glory, faith-to-faith and favour-to-favour, it is not the time to settle back and simply enjoy the inheritance we already have.     There is Unfinished business here.

The children of Israel had to be ready at all times to up stakes and move on whenever the cloud or the pillar moved, they moved, sometimes they stayed a month in one place other times a day, they had to be ready and willing at all times to be obedient to the call of the Lord.   As soon as they heard the trumpet sound they were to up camp and move on.    I wonder how they felt about the trumpet sound, did they wait eagerly to hear it knowing that they would be moving closer to Gods purpose for them, or did they dread the sound knowing that once again it would mean uprooting and change.     They journeyed and crossed into the inference which was full of unfinished business.

The trumpet of the Lord is certainly sounding across His church in these days calling us to wake up and step into the fullness of our calling.    It is calling us to move on and not simply camp around our experiences of the past whether good or bad, it is calling us to press on and embrace the revelation that is being birthed in this day.     Unfinished business prevents us from stopping around anything that is not the full cause of Christ.   People say this and that is the main event, the thing God is doing, this is the structure and pattern, it’s that theology and practice, it’s this experience and encounter, yet the main event has always been one thing God’s cause “Christ filling all things” and all is unfinished business until that happens.

Each generation have their own journey to walk, their own milestones to reach, and we are so aware of the continuity of the body of Christ knowing that the achievements of each generation build on the last and prepare the way for the next.   I remember once being told that God had no grandchildren, meaning that each generation will have their own encounter and task to fulfill in the great scheme of things.      It is our joy to be in the position to build on what we have received whilst knowing that we will advance a greater unfolding of what we had received – faith-to-faith.

We recognize that the children of Israel had certain milestones in their journey, and likewise we know that the Lord has given us certain milestones that we must reach towards in our journey together.   These are marks for us to hit, things for us to reach towards together and see achieved in our day and generation.

You and I have unfinished business and the grace and supply of god is there as we make his cause our unfinished business!    As you move further and further into this year may you truly finish unfinished business for this is the draw of God s work.  Complete that which is in our day to finish.

2012 – I am the New Year

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I came across the following while considering the two gift of God to us in Creation – TIME & PLACE they are a few words to consider at the commencement of 2012…
I am unused, unspotted without blemish
I stretch before you three hundred and sixty-five days long.   I will present each day in its turn, a new leaf in the Book of Life, for you to place upon it your imprint
It remains for you to make me what you will: if you write with firm, steady strokes, my pages will be a joy to look upon when the next New Year comes. If pen falters, if uncertainty, doubt or sin mar pages, it will become a day to remember with pain
I am the New Year  During each Hour of three-hundered-sixty-five days, I will give you sixty minutes that have never known the use of man, pure, I present them; it remains for you to fill them with sixty jewelled seconds of love, hope, endeavour, patience and trust in God
I am the new Year; I am here but once past, I can never be recalled
MAKE ME YOUR BEST

Things no one told me

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2012 will be my 28th year of serving the people of God, when I was 28 years old I was asked to consider leaving the building industry, laying brick and mortar down, to give my focus into building a dwelling through people’s lives.   It has been an amazing adventure to date and it is not over yet.  Myself, Sandra and our family have served in so many ways.  I was once told ”try everything” to discover the grace on your life, which we did with eager abandonment.   Serving in different capacities of influence and leadership, being administrators, running children’s ministry to 1000’s, leading outreach teams across the UK from cities and towns, serving in a mission environment, teaching, preaching, imparting,  painting, digging trenches, carrying bags, repairing cars, caring for and loving the ministers of God,  leading congregations, envisioning people, being known as prophets and laying our lives down as apostolic servants of the body.  The list is quite endless when we think of it.

In our journey we have been schooled by some wonderful men and women, been imparted to, impacted by and had understanding laid down in us over the years, some things we learned no one could have taught us or prepared us for.   Here are some of these lessons we hope will empower and advance you in your journey.

People told me about loving God and loving people, but they did not teach me how to love. That came through experience, joys and often challenge.

I had not fully understood how complicated the lives of people were, I learned the need to engage with people in the long journey as well as immediate situations with constant love

I was surprised at how judgmental and cruel Christian people could be.  I was not warned or perhaps I did not listen at the time.

It would have been helpful to have more insight into problem solving, and crisis management.

I thank God for my business training, as not much attention or training was given to financial management.

Although we began more than 20 years ago we heard much about family integrity, we still have many that did not listen as within families of leadership much pain is left to one-side, I recall some saying, “You just go out and serve the church. God will take care of your family.” Many families fractured through it.

There is no way anyone can prepare you for the loneliness of leadership.  The importance of friendship with colleagues should have been reinforced.  We have to help each other, aloneness is a necessary skill to learn and occupy.   To understand aloneness is empowerment but loneliness is a killer.

Another problem that is on ongoing for us all to learn on the hoof was that the church was God’s church … not mine. I was an under-shepherd.   We all subscribe to the notion that the church is His church, but the practicality of that comes into focus when we deal with vision, competitiveness, pressure to conform etc.

I had to learn how to be myself and build on my own strengths.  People, ministry and peer-pressure can make us conform and be as the USA would say “cookie-cutter” copies.

Loving and caring is not for the faint of heart.  Probably, if I had been told everything, I would not have completed the course, perhaps not even begun, but discovering my love for God and for His people enabled me to continue the course. I am so glad no one told me everything, and I am so glad I am pursuing.

What we love, we love to think of.

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“I love you”, three most powerful words in our vocabulary, simple words yet so much impact.     It has been said that’s these three simple words that roll of the tongue so easily deal with a persons Identity, Integrity, and Intimacy.   They really do not amount to simple Hollywood lines, to move an audience at a pinnacle point in a moving film, when some one departs a life or loses a life.     What kind of world would we truly belong to if we all realised to say “I Love You” is impactive, powerful and we would invest ourselves into the statement.   These three words the hold three fundamental “I” would be transformational.

For this is when the power of our words is rally seen when we invest out identity to say I love you, it’s who I am.   When we take our integrity and stand by our word to the you we direct our word too, and finally when we invest all our intimacy, which is our inner ways made open, our vulnerability laid on the line, out honesty to say love.   How much better a world it would be?    We may not say I love you so often but when we would it would be invested with so much of you, God, and me.   Now consider this when God says he loves you and me his intimacy, integrity and identity he invest and directs it us, so much of himself given when he said he “…loved the world…” when he said ”…I will never leave you…” when he sounded across the heavens that he loves you, when he sent his love manifestation the Son to this would he invested into “I Love You”.

I started with a statement “What we love, we love to think of”, we see this so simple outlined with a love struck teenager, not only a teenager but anyone that when they love some you we tease “they’re off their food” we say, they are pre-occupied with some one in every conversation simple “what we love, we love to think of”.    The Psalmist in 119:97 (Message) “Oh, how I love all you’ve revealed; I reverently ponder it all the daylong” the love of the revelation of the Father is declared here.   I must admit I too would love to say this as there is nothing like scaling the highest of the revelation of God.   This revelations that we scale has one focus “…in the last days reveled in His Son…” Hebrews 1.   O how I love all you’ve reveled he says with so much passion in the words of his love and so much so it fills my day all daylong, my pondering, my wondering, my though, my view all down to you.

There is an object and it is the personhood of God, Christ is that which has been revelled. The revelation is always the Fathers Son.   The all is Christ, the revelation is Christ, it’s personal personhood revelation he revels in.   This is the revelation I love, the revelled word.

This love of revelation is beyond a Bible Study, Never have there been so many tools available for serious Bible study, and we are grateful for them. However, the Word of God is unlike any other book: we must be on good terms with the Author if we are to learn from what He has written. Our relationship to the Lord is determined by our relationship to His will, and that is determined by how we relate to His Word. The encouragement here is to go beyond the dos and don’ts of law to an appeal for a revelatory encounter, it’s heart knowledge of a person and the living Word, and it means being taught by God (v. 102).

Here are some practical way to deepen our enjoyment of the reveled word and to encounter once again this living breathing revelation.  

Love His Word and meditate on it (vv. 97–100). We enjoy thinking about people and activities that we love, simple meditation means loving by pondering on him and his Word and allowing its truths to penetrate our hearts. (48, 113, 127, 159, 165, 167; and 1:2.)

Allowing our minds and hearts are so open to the Holy Spirit and we are ready to be led by him at ever moment of the He can remind us of the Word when we need it and give us fresh understanding in the new challenges we face.

Note this there are many ways to learn truth.

We can learn from our enemies in the encounters of life (v. 98), From teachers in the explanations of life from books and lessons (v. 99)

From these who have life experience and know the principles that work (v. 100).

We have many in the scriptures that were mentored and learned from others Elijah & Elisha, Joshua learned from serving with Moses, from the battles that he fought, and from the experiences, good and bad, that came to his life. But the most important thing he did was to meditate on the Word (Josh. 1:1–9), because his meditation helped him to test what he had learned in the other three “classrooms” and to put it all together into one balanced whole. God shares His truth with babes (Luke 10:21) and those who are humble enough to receive it (1 Cor. 1:18–2:8).

By obeying His Word (vv. 101–102). A true learner and one where the revelation of God lives in is not a person with a big head, full of all sorts of knowledge, but one who has an obedient heart and loves to do God’s will. If the Bible tells us something is wrong, we stay off that path. If God tells us something is right, we do not abandon it. “Obedience is the organ of spiritual knowledge” (F. W. Robertson) and Obedience is the only true worship not singing songs.

Enjoy His Word (vv. 103–104). Honey would be the sweetest thing the psalmist could taste. However, the Word contains both sweetness and bitterness, and we must learn to receive both (19:10; 104:34; Prov. 16:24; Ezek. 2:9–3:15; Rev. 10). Samson got into trouble because of eating defiled honey from the carcass of a lion (Judg. 14:1–18). He was a Nazarite and was never to touch a dead body (Num. 6), so he defiled both himself and his parents, for Jewish people had to avoid dead animals (Num. 5:2; 9:10).

God’s Word is pure, not defiled, and gives us the sweetness and energy we need to obey His commands. A child of God feeds on the Scriptures and enjoys the sweet taste of truth. This is what it means to go beyond Bible study.

What we love, we love to think of.

A good man carries his Bible with him in his head and in his heart, the better furnished we are with answers to temptation.

Oh, how I love all you’ve revealed; I reverently ponder it all the daylong.