2018 Here We Come!

Prophets, Vision and Perspective!!

We have been moving through the Bible at Church at the Manor as Jen has walked us through Isaiah and Jeremiah.  We continue our theme with God and the Prophets as we now look at Ezekiel.

First of all I want to point out something quite interesting.

Ezekiel was by the Kebar River and at this point we are 5 years into the exile of King Johoiachin.  So, they have now been in Babylon for 5 years.  It was at this same time that we have Psalm 137 penned yet the perspective of Psalms is very dark, loathing and full of regret.

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
    when we remembered Zion.
² There on the poplars
    we hung our harps,
³ for there our captors asked us for songs,
    our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
    they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴ How can we sing the songs of the Lord
    while in a foreign land?

However at this very point God is giving Ezekiel an incredible vision of His glory.  The word for glory here is the word “kavod” meaning a physical display of God’s presence and it’s a powerful one.

Just like Jeremiah, Ezekiel had a very difficult task to warn God’s people that they were deserting God and completely forgetting Him in their everyday life…so much so that they actually were turning to other gods and doing unthinkable worship practices following the worship of our nations.

So, God asked them to very challenging things to get the attention of the people.

Let’s look in particular at a few things that Ezekiel had to do in chapter 4

Clay tablet – He had to set up a miniature display of the city and create a scene of destruction.

Bake bread over human excrement – he actually is able to ask God to change his mind, and gets to cook wheat, barley and beans over cow manure….for 390 days while lying on his side to represent the Northern Kingdom. He then had to turn to his other side and do the exact same thing for 40 days for the Southern Kingdom.  The point, food and water were going to be scarce when the nation is invaded.

It goes on at the beginning of Chapter 5 when he has to shave his head and beard….

The call on the life of a prophet wasn’t an easy one and often was met with great resistance especially when the message was a difficult one designed as a wake up call.

Kevin was a man in our previous church who had a prophetic gift.  Unfortunately he wasn’t well received either even though his message was always one of blessing and encouragement.  He also was socially awkward and would often cry and be right up in your personal space to give you the message.

He also did warn people too.  In Sharon and my case, he made it very clear that I wasn’t to pursue a traditional church ministry again as I was looking into a church in Kitchener.  I am so thankful for his prophetic messages that spoke deeply into my life.

As we look back into Ezekiel’s story there is a bright side.   Ezekiel, much like Jeremiah comes full circle with a message of hope, reconciliation and deliverance. There is a future beyond exile for Israel.

Ch 34-37  Hope For Israel

There will be a new David – the Messiah, a new Israel – a new transformed people.  They will receive a new heart – a heart of stone will turn to a heart of flesh that will enable them to love and obey.

There is a vision of a valley of dry bones in chapter 37 He sees skin appearing on the bones and new humans coming to life.  It’s a parallel to God’s creation in Genesis 2  There will be a new act of creation where the new transformed people will act in love with each other and with creation.

Ch 38,39  Speaks of hope for the nations.

God will defeat evil.  It is everything that this nation Gog represents.  Gog are all the violent kingdoms of the world.  This paves the way as well for a new creation.

Ch 40-48 God’s presence will return to a “new temple’.   There will be a new city and Ezekiel gets a tour of this city with a new altar, new priests and a new sense of worship.  The glorious chariot that Ezekiel saw in chapter 1 makes it rendezvous here as well.

The meaning of the vision of the temple is very symbolic of God’s presence with His people.  It is a picture of the Garden of Eden with God’s life giving presence there.  This new garden is called “The LORD is there. 

It is a place full of hope for a new future, a world that is permeated with God’s love and justice.  We continue to pray for God’s preferred future for the Church at the Manor as we enter a new year and are excited for what He has in store for us!  Continue to pray for His leading and His Kingdom come to the Manor in 2018!

Here are a few highlights from this past month!

We were so excited to host about 70 people for our Manor Church / Staff Christmas Party

                                   Dan showing off his new tattoo with Philippians 4:13

                          Also, interesting to note that we are recognized by uberfacts!

Going For Broke!

In Ephesians 3:14-21 Paul risks everything in prayer in an all-out effort for his readers to know the Holy Spirit’s power, the presence and love of Jesus and the fullness of the Father.

I am really inspired by this prayer and it definitely a favourite prayer of mine.  It is especially significant in that it focuses on the whole trinity and the part that they all play in the glorious outworking of our faith.  It's a prayer that serves as an example to me, as a pastor, of the kinds of qualities that I should pray to invade the souls of each and every one of you. I believe it should also serve as an example of how we, as individual members of this church family, should pray for one another.

But most of all, I believe this prayer is meant to motivate us! It is meant to impact us with a sense the wonder and value of the spiritual riches that are ours in Christ. It is meant to take hold of every fiber of our being and let the truth of those riches sink deeply into our hearts and lives and transform us from the inside-out.

Ok, let’s dive in and break it down.

For this reason I kneel before the Father v14

There is something to be said about posture in prayer. 

Our best attempts at prayer fall short unless they are empowered by the Spirit of God.  Otherwise prayers are just spoken words, Bible study is just words read, worship music is just words sung and music played. Once Paul had emphasized the grace by which we stand, he now he falls to his knees .  In that day it was typical for the Jews to stand in prayer as we can see in Matthew 6:5; Luke 18:11,13.

Kneeling was significant because it showed an expression of deep emotion and earnestness.  We see Solomon kneeling at the dedication of the temple(1 Kings 8:54), Stephen kneeling as he was being martyred, Peter kneeling at the deathbed of Dorcas, Paul as he made his farewell to the congregations and most significantly, Jesus, as He knelt in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

As a child I will never forget walking past my father's bedroom and seeing him on his knees in prayer.  It is forever etched in my mind. I knew that he prayed in earnest for me as he did for my family as well.

From whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name v15

Paul is praying specifically for those who are part of the family of God.  This is not a prayer for just anyone, it was for those who had crossed the line of faith, those who had a defining place of giving their life over to Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

It was out of his glorious riches, that He is calling us to discover just how much confidence, power and resolve we have in our very being!

Prayer request #1 

16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

Can you have the power and still not access the power of the HS?  Yes, it’s like have a bank account that we don't access.  However when we continually make a withdrawal we are powerful in Him.

When you are made strong in the inner man by the Holy Spirit, there will be power to blast out the unbelief, and power to overcome despair, and power to rise above anger, and power to keep going when you would rather quit. That “inner man” is the control room of life where every great decision is made.   KAPOW!

SO WHAT??  SO that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

The power of the Holy Spirit works in tandem with Jesus.

Dwell = It was a presence that He wanted to remain in us continually, to be at home.  It was something for us to discover in its fullness; not sporadically from time to time.  There are places where we feel his presence stronger more than others, yes, but He is with us always.

Also, know that because of your relationship with Him, there is not a single thing you are lacking from your spiritual treasure-store!!  The fact is that you, as a believer, have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Prayer request #2

 And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. V17b -19

We need to go to the very places where we can know the power to experience the depths of Christ’s love. 

to grasp (understand that this is hard work) 

The enemy loves to keep us busy, loves to keep us distracted.  He also is very good at accusing you of not being where you should be.

The decision to remain still and be before God instead of ‘doing’ for God is a very difficult thing for us to wrap our minds and hearts around.  However it is often that in those extended times of stillness where we give ourselves over to listening to Him that He washes over us with His love.  For some of us it is doing something that we absolutely love that is of a pure heart and feeling His joy there.

Here is the paradox: Paul prayed that we would “know” something that is beyond knowledge.  It surpasses knowledge, He wants you to experience it.

He wants it to go from information to transformation!  

Realize this that as he prayed for his readers to have this experience.  He was unable to describe it nor was he going to try to teach it happening in a certain way.  He recognized that we are all unique in the ways that we feel our way to God.  We also know that true spiritual formation is caught rather than taught. 

An exercise that we recently asked the leaders of Crossings to participate in was to write a love letter to God and then in response to ask the LORD simply, what do you want to say to me?

Here is my love letter to God that day.

God and Father I love you with all my heart.  You are sooo gracious and patient with me.  You restore me, You strengthen me, You love me and I’m so thankful.  Without You I am nothing, there is no purpose, no point.  With You, I feel so good, so at peace.  Draw me more into this sweet spot! I’m so often busy and miss out.  I don’t want to miss out on what You are doing.  Jesus, thank you for so sacrificially loving me, forgiving me.  I don’t deserve any of it.

Here is what I sensed in my inner being as He spoke to me.

Jack, be near, be still, be close.  Watch what I’m doing in your midst.  In stillness and quietness is your strength.  I will be with you through the fire, through the cloud, through the rain.  I have loved you with an everlasting love.

Then I spoke, God I know you are most glorified when I’m most satisfied in You.

Then I heard,   stop racing, stop running, slow down, enter in.  Don’t make it an assignment.  Come to me, listen, learn, dwell.  Don’t rush ahead.  I have so much I want to show you, discover it with me, be restored in My presence.

Recognize that this is going to be hard, it’s going to be a battle.  The enemy doesn’t want you to go there.  He doesn’t want you to read your Bible.  He’ll throw as much interruptions in your life as possible to keep you from going there.  I know you are busy, most .  If you set out to do this, there will be spiritual battles that will rise up, guaranteed.  He doesn’t want you to hear from the LORD.  Put on the full armor of God.  Set a time, set a place, turn off all the notifications to go there.  I had a roommate who was so committed to meeting with God that he literally went into his closet to pray and it wasn’t a walk in one!!

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

THIS IS A STATEMENT OF FAITH – When you have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit, the presence and love of Jesus and the fullness of the Father will be ready to be unleashed to go OUT! 

To dream big dreams for the Church, for His kingdom, for the glory of Christ.

The power that is at work within us”; “at work” translates energoumai, meaning to be energized!  Be energized by that very work that He wants to carry out through all of us collectively as a body of believers...a fusion that creates an undeniable synergy in our ministry and focus!

On being filled to the  fullness of God

The word for “filled” has the idea of being dominated by something. If you are filled with rage, then rage will dominate your life. If you are filled with love, then love dominates your life. If you are filled with joy, then joy dominates your life. When you are filled with God, then God himself will dominate your life. It pictures the total transformation of the human personality by virtue of the presence of God in your life.

Let’s look at some prayers of desperation and God’s strong reminders of our identity.

Do you know who you are?

Do you know what resources are available to you?

Do you have the power?

Are you experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in your inner being?

Turn with me to Judges 6

11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”14 The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

Ok, tell me what did Gideon believe about himself?

However, who did God say he was?

Gideon – How did he see himself?  He saw himself as the very least, his clan as the weakest and the youngest, most forgotten in his family, yet he was called by God, “a mighty warrior, a man of valor.”  God led him to an improbable victory!

Now, let’s remember it didn’t come about right away.  Gideon tested God quite a few times while putting out fleece.  God is so gracious with us.

Often with God, it goes against all earthly sense and the way to victory for him

Takeaway

God’s love is extravagant, He lavishes His love on His children. Take time everyday to embrace His love because when you know it there’s nothing 

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!   1 John 3:1

We are called to embrace it and there’s nothing you won’t go broke for in whatever Jesus calls you for His kingdom, His glory.

Be unleashed in the world He has sent you to with His love!

Who Do You Think You Are?

 Last Friday I had the opportunity to visit with some of the men who live at the Manor.  I take time often just to sit and listen to them talk about what they are dealing with and the chaos they live in thanks to others who live there.  Some just can’t wait to get out of that place and when you talk about how long they have lived there, it’s always been too long.  So, when I met with Larry this past Friday, something really special happened.  We talked about his work situation, the fact that he will bike wherever he needs to go…even when he has too many beers.  Larry can come out with amazing insights from the Bible too and I’ve discovered that Larry knows Jesus.  So, on this day I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed for him.  Afterwards, I said, Larry, I want you to pray for me.  As he prayed, he said, “LORD, help Jack to see it’s not what he does for you, it’s about what you created him to be.” It was a moment for sure and a special reminder that God gave me through Larry!

The root of our identity as image-bearers of God needs to be addressed.  We were created in His likeness to reflect His goodness and love.  It was lost all the way back with Adam and we need to reclaim our identity!

Why is it so important for us to continue to revisit this theme?

·         You really can’t live in the fullness of who you have been created to be until you really know who you are.

·         If you aren’t fully persuaded of your identity in Jesus, criticism can really devastate you!

·          You’ll be able to gauge by how you respond to criticism in determining where you are at.  Do you react or respond.  When we react, it is usually an unfiltered knee-jerk, fast response.  It’s of the flesh and not the Spirit. Responding with grace takes incredible patience.  It can only comes from a deep rooted faith and rested identity in Christ.

·         Take a moment to think of what is typical of you if you are honest with yourself

·         I believe when you aren’t strong in knowing your purpose, your value, you take everything someone says about you personally or completely at face value and allow it to shape your identity. The opposite of this is the ability to step back from a situation when you are being attacked.  It will allow you to process and say, “ok, where is this really coming from.” 

      Have any of you read the story “You Are Special” by Max Lucado.  Read it with your children because we need to start this focus on how God truly sees us early in life.

Ephesians 4:20-22

That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

These truths need to be written on our hearts!  We need to take off the mask, strip away everything that is part of defining us by the world’s standards.  It is a process of retraining our minds through the lens of Scripture.

I want to share about some truths that spill out of your identity in Ephesians.

ONCE                                                                                                                                    NOW

	YOUR  POSITION v1-6
All you thought about was gratifying yourself: the WIIFM syndrome, I want it now, I wanted it yesterday.  You fill in the blank We were dead in sin. We were deserving of wrath, we were deserving of nothing. We were consumed by Black Friday consumerism	God RAISED you up, you are seated in heavenly places.   YOU have a new perspective.  God is giving you a window to see things from an eternal perspective…. The question we need to ask ourselves is this, “ In the light of eternity, how much  am I going to place on this situation? Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good.  He came to make dead people come to life!
	YOUR INHERITANCE v12,13
You were so far away from God in your thoughts, your decisions, You were excluded – left out You were foreigners – you didn’t have a claim to anything, without God, without hope.	You have been brought near to the Father by the blood of Jesus, we can come boldly into His presence. Included in the covenant of promise – a promise of blessing, a promise of redemption.  He is the God who redeems our life with good things! Fellow citizens of God’s people
	YOUR BLESSING v7,14
I have to make it happen.  If anything good happens in my life, I made it happen I am separate from Christ, there is no blessing.	He wants you to tangibly experience the incomparable riches of His grace He is our peace, our calm in the midst of life’s storms, our refuge. We have access to the Father by the Spirit.
	YOUR FAMILY v19-21
I have to prove that I’m somebody.  It’s about my resume, my network of friends, It’s me being me, a good human being, trying to prove I belong.	This is not just an individual thing.  We are being built together to become a dwelling where God lives by His Spirit.  I experienced a powerful reminder of this while I visited the wailing wall in Jerusalem and stood at the amazing foundation Peace and harmony in our relationships.  No one is superior.  The ground is completely level at the cross
	YOUR DESTINY v8-10, 21,22
Following the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.	I am saved, I’m God’s handiwork I have been set up by God to do good works for His kingdom. I am dwelling place in which God lives by his Spirit.

When we wrap our hearts and minds around this, our attitude, our outlook can significantly change.

My personal journey towards my identity in Christ.

My identity as a Christian was very much wrapped up in what I did.  I really took pride in doing my devotions, I was pretty disciplined when it came to doing my devotions.  I did Bible lessons through the Mailbox Bible Club when I was younger.  As a teenager, I was active in the “Christian Service Brigade” and earned the “Herald of Christ”.    I sensed a call to full time ministry when I was 17 and I was off and running to become a pastor.  I went through four years of Bible School to get my BRE and another two years to  get my MRE for good measure.  I thought I was ready for God to use me.  I didn’t say it, but I definitely thought it.  I jumped through all the “hoops” and I was ready.  I put out my resume…everywhere, but no one wall calling, no one was interested in me.  It was devastating honestly to the point that I gave up on being a pastor.  I honestly thought that I heard God wrong so I focused on teaching.  I had given up so much on being a pastor that when the church I was attending and serving at posted a youth pastor position, I didn’t even apply.  However, it was at this moment that God took over and the pastor invited me out to lunch and then asked me to become the youth pastor.

So, what’s the lesson?

My, being a pastor, would not come about because of my ministry experience, my education, my training.  It had everything to do with Him and continues to have everything to do with Him.  It means I actively need to be listening to His voice, finding my purpose, my identity, my calling in Him, in what He has done for me, what He has created me to be, just like Larry said.

Christian discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God’s righteousness and less and less attention to our own; finding the meaning of our lives not by probing our moods and motives but by believing in God’s will and purposes; making a map of the faithfulness of God, not charting the rise and fall of our own enthusiasms.    Eugene Peterson

Will The Real YOU please stand up!

So, the other week, I lost my wallet and man it was a sick feeling.  I searched high and low for it in my house, retraced my steps and revisited the places that I went.  I went online right away to check if my cc had been compromised.  It wasn’t, so that was good.  I prayed about it too and still nothing and then hours later, I rechecked the closet again and there it was at the bottom on top of a pair of shoes…it had fallen out of my jacket.

Amidst all the franticness, one of my kids says to me, “Dad, are you ever worried that someone could steal your identity?”

When we think about our identity as followers of Jesus, there is always someone who is right there ready to strip us of any confidence, any sense of assurance of who we are as God’s children and that is of course, the enemy, Satan.  He comes to steal, kill and destroy our identity . So, it is absolutely important that we don’t lose it.  Here’s the truth though, he can’t take it away from us, but He can sure do his best to make us feel like we’ve lost it.

When we think about our physical identity, it is often right here, (point to pocket) but spiritually I want you to focus on your identity as a believer here (point to head and heart).

 Proverbs 23:7 As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”

Jesus came to give us life more abundant, life to the full, a life free from comparison, a life free from titles or status.  When we are IN CHRIST, we have this incredible freedom to be who we are, who God created us to be.

Don’t let the Enemy steal your IDENTITY

You have been REBORN FOR THIS

3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.   Ephesians 1:3-7 NLT    showered (lavished)

As followers of Jesus, it is not what we do that determines who we are;  it is what we believe that determines who we become  AND that is why it is so important that we have a rock solid understanding of who God says we are!

·         Blessed with every spiritual blessing, adoption, brought into His family and seen as holy

·         You are loved, chosen, you are without fault before you even took a breath.   

It was all God’s initiative, it was all through the finished work of Jesus and here’s the amazing thing.  He did all of this and proclaimed this over you because HE WANTED TO DO it, You give HIM great pleasure.

One of the biggest lies that the enemy works on you early in your relationship with God is your assurance of knowing that you are a child of God.  I certainly struggled in this area and he loves to create doubt, confusion and even manipulate what others say to you. 

So, Paul wants to establish a firm foundation for this young church in making it absolutely clear about what God has done for them.  I want to do the same by reiterating the wealth of our resources and identity as followers of Jesus. 

Practically, we need to keep our identity in front of us and if that means on the mirror in our washroom or on the fridge so that we allow these truths to really sink in!

Don’t get STUCK on your SELF

Our own sense of SELF gets in the way or as the Bible describes it, our FLESH.

A lot of us gain our sense of identity based on our family background, work, even human relationships.  In our social media crazed world, we can easily attach our personal worth and let it rise or fall based on the # of likes we receive on our pictures or posts. 

GET ROOTED IN CHRIST

Ephesians 1:11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

In Christ we are SIGNIFICANT, it is the purpose of his well, In Christ,

Our identity is SECURE, we are included. In Christ, the HS is your guarantee, you are God’s possession.  He is saying, I OWN YOU.

We are SUFFICIENT, we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit

It was God the Father who said of Jesus “this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” before He even began his public ministry.

Your identity in Christ is so important to grasp because it will shape the motives for why you serve. 

Identity precedes activity – who I am in Christ comes before what I do for Christ. Steven Furtick

And the flipside, without Christ we can do nothing, without Christ, we will always fall short and without Christ, we will continue to doubt ourselves.

Don’t sell yourself SHORT

ASK FOR MORE

Check out The BIG ASK!  Going for it with our prayer requests

16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms

First and foremost we need to be able to be rich in confidence and assurance of who we are and what is ours in order to bring wisdom, insight, hope and meaning to others.

•             The Spirit of wisdom- insight into the true nature of things, the ability to make decisions that reflect the heart of God

Can you identify a time when God gave you the Spirit of wisdom about yourself or a situation that God placed you in?

•        The Spirit of revelation – the communication of God to your soul, it is an uncovering, the ability to unveil.  It is the spiritual power of insight is only because of the gift of the Holy Spirit.  This is where prayer can become very exciting and bring incredible confirmation into people’s lives.

A simple prayer I pray that incorporates this is,  “Father, give me eyes to see what You want me to see and ears to hear what You want me to hear.”

Can you identify a time when God gave you a Spirit of revelation into your own life or another person’s life or a time when the love of God was revealed to you in a unique way?

This summer, our daughter Addi was accepted with YWAM, a 6 month youth discipleship training and missions ministry.  She worked hard at roofing alongside her brothers and me as well as doing her landscaping job.  Sharon and my mom also came alongside her to do fundraising through selling plants for the missions portion of her trip.  So, the first phase was due the other week and it was $3300- in total.  The amount she raised through working and fundraising was $3280 +$50- that just happened to be coming in that same day through another plant sale!  God is so good!!

Speaking about identity...fun fact for all my new friends at Crossings who made it to the end of my blog, I was the newspaper carrier of the month back in the day...1979, to be exact.  I actually kept that paper route for 7 years!!

Why All The Rules?

I left Acton for a very conservative Bible school in the fall of 1985.  It was there that for the young men who attended like myself, our hair couldn’t touch our collar or ears.  We wore ties and dress shirts each day to class.  We all woke up at 6am and by 6:25am needed to be in our room doing our devotions by 6:30am. A bell would ring at 6:55am and we would all head down to the dining hall for breakfast, but for another devotion.  We would have assigned seating with men on one side of the table and ladies on the other side, and a female server who would bring us more juice, milk, toast etc.  There was also mandatory study hall in the evenings and don’t even think about playing music on your  Sony Walkman with headphones as I found out because the demerit points would rack up.  If you had 10 points in a week, it meant you were ‘campused’ for the weekend.  This meant that you were to stay in your dorm room and only allowed for meals! 

The thought process I believe was that self-discipline and a Spirit-controlled life would happen through external modes of discipline and control.  However, here is the crazy thing that happened in me.  As I began to participate in that culture, it produced in me an incentive to rebel.  I got’ campused ‘ a lot! For others it produced a form of self-righteousness.

In my dorm, we had Tony, an older man, who, no word of a lie, created his spiritual top 50 list based on our behaviors around the school from time spent in prayer, devotion, ministry opportunities etc…  Tony’s approach wasn’t very well received and he became the target of many pranks.  As you can imagine it didn’t help our standing on his spiritual top 50.

Let’s look at Romans 7:8 where Paul was describing this very thing. He is struggling with this very issue with his desire to do things that are pleasing to God and yet doing the opposite.

For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting.

The ugliness of human nature is such that being told not to do something actually creates in you the desire to do it.

And on the flipside, we see from the life of Paul that the attempt to observe the law unfortunately produced in him a self-righteousness that was quite ugly as well. 

He made it clear in Philippians 3:4-9

 though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

And as Sharon mentioned last week, he considered that all “crap” compared to knowing the freedom of being in Christ.

So, why do we gravitate towards creating rules for ourselves and others when it comes to knowing God?

Rules are safe, they create boundaries to know whether you are in or out.

Rules allow you to create a measuring stick to know how well you are doing. 

“We choose rules because they are a nicely packaged alternative to a relationship with God.” Duane McLean shared in my service on Sunday….so true!

What is the danger in removing rules?

People will become lazy in following Jesus, they may end up just living in sin longer.

Let’s MOVE from following RULES to a deep love relationship with our FATHER

 Sometimes when we live by the rules we qualify that as relationship and we love our spiritual habits more than the person who we are supposed to fall in love with.

The Scriptures were never an end in themselves.  They are intended to lead us to Jesus and greater intimacy with Him.

John 5:39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

I had a professor in Bible School who knew entire books of the Bible by memory and was a walking commentary; however what I remember most wasn’t his Bible knowledge.  I remember an embarrassing moment for a student in his class.  All of us as students had 6hrs of mandatory work to complete in the week to keep our room and board costs down.  Unfortunately for a student by the name of Jared,  his job was to milk the cows at 4am!  One day he fell asleep in class and the professor decided to shame and belittle him instead of really understanding his situation.

So, the point of knowing and reading Scripture, the point of prayer, the point of journaling, the point of any spiritual exercise is not to feel superior or boast, but it is to draw you into a closer walk and deeper intimacy and love for Jesus.

Here’s an example.  If you are disciplined to wake up at 6am to do your devotions, but you are yelling at your kids at supper time… maybe that’s not working for you.

Let’s talk real, practical, out of the box…

What are some simple examples or spiritual exercises that have helped nurture your relationship with God to a deeper level of faith and trust.

Let’s look again at what the Bible says about rules and the law.

Hebrews 10:15The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First He says: 16“This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put My Laws in their hearts and inscribe them on Ttheir minds.” 17Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”…

This verse is a direct fulfillment of a prophecy that was given in the book of Jeremiah.  It was to be so much a very living and vital part of us.

Jeremiah 3133"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Let’s MOVE from an ACHIEVING SYSTEM to RECEIVING all He has for us in Christ

All of our life, from school to the workplace, there is evaluation and constant correction, approval and disapproval, promotion and demotion.  We live in an achieving system so it is so easy to stay there when it comes to defining our spiritual life by some of the more common objectives.

·         How much time to do you spend in prayer daily?

·         How much time do you spend reading Scripture?

·         How much time do you spend serving in the church?

·         How many people have you witnessed to this week?

Colossians 2:6

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

We continue on in Christ the same way that we received Christ and that has nothing to do with us.  It has everything to do with Him.  It is all about being  IN HIM, abiding IN HIM,  resting In Him, HIS words abiding in us.   It is His enabling strength,  it is His teaching, it is out of HIS overflow.

We have nothing to give apart from what He has done in us.

There will be fruit in your life, but is it coming from overflow or rules?

Here is a way to know.

When it is from overflow, it really is easy, it’s natural, it’s a way of life.  It isn’t forced, it wells up inside you.

Let’s MOVE from SELF reliance on our own to LISTENING to the Holy Spirit

Ephesians 2:8-10

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  (before ordained in the KJV)

This is incredible strong language.  The word ordained is the same here to the words used to describe our justification and regeneration in Romans 8.  It is all about the foreknowledge of God!

I like to say that God sets us up for divine appointments. 

He puts us in certain situations around specific people for the purpose of sharing His love.

When I want to share with you the most beautiful and amazing story of a friend of ours who seeks to do all things by listening to the Spirit and by the power of the Spirit.

I remember one afternoon being in Costco with Sharon when we got this message from Maggie B. who leads the Father’s Heart Healing Rooms ministry.  She told us she felt led by the HS to ask us to invite Roger C., the owner of the Manor to her “Healing and Prophetic” service.  I didn’t really think she was hearing right.  It really did seem absurd to me in the moment and so I had a choice.  Do I act or “sluff it off” so to speak.

However, I believe that Maggie was hearing from the Holy Spirit, I took a risk to follow through.

Roger has not even stepped into a ‘regular’ church service.  However, I was obedient and simply texted him.  He replied, “Yes, I’ll come…what is the dress code”  Of course I said it was casual, but here is a small example of God’s goodness.

Maggie wrapped a Canadian flag around her to share about her burden for the nation.  When Roger showed up,  he had a Canadian flag on his belt buckle   It was then that I knew this wasn’t a fluke, Roger was meant to be here.

At one point during the 3 hour service, he leans over and asks, “Is there going to be an intermission?”

lol

Can you identify a time when you recognized that God had prepared you in advance for a connection or meeting with someone? 

The TAKEAWAY

Here’s YOUR TEST, this week move

from rules to relationship!

from achieving to receiving!

from self reliance to listening!

Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you in one of these areas.  Remember He is our teacher.

God, Sex and the Song of Songs!

How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!
    How much more pleasing is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfume
    more than any spice!
¹¹ Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;
    milk and honey are under your tongue.

Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
    your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil
    are like the halves of a pomegranate.

Your graceful legs are like jewels,
    the work of an artist’s hands.
² Your navel is a rounded goblet
    that never lacks blended wine.
Your waist is a mound of wheat
    encircled by lilies.
³ Your breasts are like two fawns,
    like twin fawns of a gazelle.

God created sex and it is most completely understood and expressed within the context of marriage.  Marriage creates the security, the boundaries and most importantly, sexual fulfillment is the bond that is completely fulfilled within that God given covenant.  A Christian marriage has three people in the bedroom and as John Piper has said, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him”. 

Sexual purity is pleasing to Him.

Sexual intimacy is meant to be shameless!

We only have to go back to Genesis to see the way that God designed us – Genesis 2:24,25 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.  25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

I know that many of the people we encounter in our post Christian culture think the Bible is hopelessly naïve on the subject of sex.  However, the message was given in a time when women were treated as possessions, where there was all forms of illicit sex taking place, where there was sexual slavery.

 The challenge for our generation is that we live where the opportunity to see the lowest forms of sexuality are one click away. Our children are being confronted with these issues earlier and earlier in life.

As followers of Jesus, we need to talk about sex and I just have to give a shout out to our pastors Jim and Carrie Gordon who present it in the most positive light at http://www.theintimatecouple.com/

We read in Hebrews 13: 4,5

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;  never will I forsake you.

There’s the challenge…be content with what you have.  In a throw-away culture unfortunately marriages and relationships are quickly given up on much like an appliance that needs to be replaced. 

Proverbs 5:18 Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. 19 She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love.

Song of Songs as seen in the following video breaks down the outline of the book into the three major themes of courtship, the wedding and the marriage and does an excellent job of giving the overall theme.

Check it out.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEEXqGg5RME&t=17s

More than anything God wants us to fully experience His intimate love and desire for us as His children.

1 Corinthians 6  For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

I have talked with people who have decided to fast from sugar and the kind of withdrawl their bodies go through with headaches, but eventually they talk about the incredible energy and stamina that they feel and how they don’t feel as tired as they used to.  So, what happens to our spirit once we do this?  I believe it will come alive and have greater sensitivity to the Lord’s leading as well!

Sanctified – positionally it is being set apart for God and practically it is a progressive act of becoming more and more driven by our appetite for the Lord and His righteousness than our own selfish desires.  ‘they that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled’

 I believe the greatest person who is able to control the body is not us but the Holy Spirit as we see later in the paragraph.

Immorality is like that. It always cheats someone else—usually someone you love very much. Just ask any wife whose husband left. Just ask any parent of a child who has had an affair. Just anyone who has been to a church where their pastor fell into sexual sin.

Perhaps the saddest thing about lust is that it never satisfies. Someone has said that lust is “the craving for salt by a man dying of thirst.” It promises everything and delivers nothing. No great release. No lasting satisfaction. Not even any swift punishment.

“The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you.” Sometimes he punishes the body, sometimes the mind, sometimes our speech, our eyes, often our health, and almost always our memories. Lust produces that inward deadening that is both unexpected and inevitable.

Pornography is like cocaine…you can be addicted the first time.  Pornography is just like that, you can be addicted to it the first time you open the door to it.  That is why 1 Corinthians 6:18 tells us to flee …RUN

 The most likely judgment is that God will simply leave you alone to suffer the natural consequences of your sin.

It is often the fallout and consequences to families that unfortunately more are affected and punished by the decisions of a few.

Don’t take advantage of your brother in this way.  He is putting this challenge out in the context of a brother to brother relationship.  The decisions that are made don’t just affect those caught in sexual sin, they ripple out and affect families, children, churches.

 “Every man is our ‘brother’ and to be politically correct every woman is our sister and when we engage in sexual immorality we are hurting our brothers or sisters.”

Remember if you are tempted to watch that movie or look at that image, that is somebody’s daughter, that is someone’s sister and they are precious in God’s eyes.

I have personally been crushed by the devastating effects of immorality and have seen the consequences of sin in the loss of trust and respect and fractured relationships that are still affected many years later.  I have seen it in a previous church ministry where I served when a pastor and our worship leader had an affair.  I saw a vibrant and growing church become a place that would go through disillusionment and take a number of years to recover.  

It’s not worth it.

Finally I need to share that if this is an area of regret, failure, pain, remember that our God and Father heals, He redeems, He can restore the years that have been ripped away from us, He can heal our past, our memories and give us a new, fresh and living hope. There is forgiveness, there is always forgiveness when we confess and He is the Father always waiting with open arms for us to return home.

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten  Joel 2:25

Be encouraged, God wants you to experience His incredible love for you and display it through you no matter what you have gone through.

I Got Fired...thank you LORD!

Today is thanksgiving, a time to remember, recognize and reflect on being thankful, having a heart filled with gratitude.  I know it’s easy to come up with some quick and meaningful expressions of why we are thankful… but what about when our health is failing, our family is broken or when we find ourselves out of work.

Four years ago, I was a lead pastor in Guelph of a church of about 300 people.  I had just returned from a missions trip to Lesotho, Africa on Thanksgiving Sunday where my faith and my love for Jesus was reignited!  

I had team members share about the trip and we shared the highlight video, but I never had a chance to preach what I learned during my trip…time ran out and I thought that I would preach it the following Sunday.  However, that never happened because the next day two members of my leadership team met with me to let me go.  It was a difficult moment, but the LORD prepared me for it.  It’s never easy to hear that you don’t measure up to expectations or fit with the needs of an organization.

James 1 

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Perseverance – it is an active endurance, likened to a person completing a marathon.

Often our prayer is LORD remove me from this situation…NOW; however often there are huge lessons to be learned through the process of perseverance.

In the parable of the sower, we also are given a picture of the importance of letting our faith draw from roots that go deep down.  It begins with a seed of faith that is planted in our heart; however these experiences can uproot us, scorch us or drive us down deeper into what we have to know and understand about God

I honestly believe that the hard and difficult times forge our faith and mold us and enable us to grow even more in our reliance on God or it can reveal the lack of roots.

Facebook is a great place to discover where people are at.

We had someone at the Manor Church and as soon as she went through a huge trial, she shared “I don’t believe in God, my faith is gone.”

So, what’s our choice in the hard times? 

We can choose to remain thankful or choose to rant on our social media platform.

We can say, OK, this is a test of obedience.  I will choose to walk this out in faith instead of moving forward in fear.

I listened to a great message this week on this very attitude of joy.

Isaiah 54

Sing, barren woman,
    you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy,
    you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
    than of her who has a husband,”
says the Lord.

1. Choose to express  JOY.

The truth here is that I can choose to express joy even though I haven’t received the answer.  Understand that this passage is speaking to the nation of Israel and is certainly applicable to the church. 

The passage is taking the natural principle of childbirth and turning it into a spiritual reality.

We are being called to SCREAM, SHOUT and be so exuberant in our worship!  It is a SCREAM of anticipation.

Shout for JOY while you can’t have kids.  Take a moment right now and think about the thing that you have the least breakthrough in, the most barren area of your life.  It may mean someone in your family who hasn’t come to know Jesus yet, it could be a family member who is battling a disease and you could be out of work right now…and what’s on the horizon doesn’t look good.  It could be a number of things.  SHOUT with extreme celebration before the answer comes.   Now this isn’t common sense and from a human perspective seems maybe presumptuous or pretentious.  However it totally makes sense from God’s perspective.

Why does it make sense?  

It is an expression of faith.  It is a deliberate choice to believe the promise and better, the Promise Giver.  Emotional expression is necessary.  This is not just an intellectual ascent that we are climbing to.

Romans 14:17 The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy. As followers of Christ, we should experience a real sense of peace and joy.

Who believes the good news is actually good news??

When we came to know Jesus as our LORD, it wasn’t just so we could have a ticket to get out of hell.  It is to become married to the FATHER and as His bride to experience fruitfulness in our greatest area of barrenness.

Also recognize that worship expression can look real weird to those who are not part of it.  Just ask Michel, David’s wife, who saw David dancing in a linen garment before the LORD when the ark returned to Israel.  She despised him in her heart.  She has issues and he said I will be even more undignified than this!  2 Samuel 6:22

Don’t judge those who are worshipping God in your midst.  Give freedom for all kinds of expression.  It will look different for all of us.

Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Joy is always within reach for us.  He would not command it of us, if it wasn’t in the reach of our will to do so. 

2. Choose to accept the PROPHETIC

² “Enlarge the place of your tent,
    stretch your tent curtains wide,
    do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
    strengthen your stakes.

So, now, the desolate woman being described here is being called to express huge faith. The desolate woman is essentially being called to build the nursery even before she is pregnant.  It is that kind of faith that the LORD rewards.

The challenge being given here is if you are living in a one bedroom home, start building the addition, build the nursery.

“You need to create the room for God to fill it!” Bill Johnson

We can choose to recognize the power of the prophetic or write it off. 

So, in my exit interview, something really positive was said and I held on to it.  They expressed my ability to create things out of nothing and said that I had a pioneering spirit.

I came home and shared the good, the bad and the ugly, but when I shared those words about a pioneering spirit with Sharon, she said you’re not going to believe this but our friend Wendy had a picture while we were praying as a group before we left for Africa.

I had to leave early for another meeting so I didn’t hear the following… She shared how she saw us all in pioneer clothes and we were in a wagon.  We were heading out on a paved road that was full of turns but on each side of the road were large green trees.  She also shared with the group that the pastors from my church were waving goodbye at us!

Right away my heart was settled, I had peace and knew that God had a new adventure for us

We can make deliberate choices that show belief or not.

For me, a deliberate choice to choose joy was to take our family on a missions trip to Lesotho Africa for a month at the end of my severance package. 

The logical choice would be to find a job, but it was important to us that our children were not bitter about this situation and instead chose to see it as a great opportunity for us as a family.

We were also trusting God to show us where we would be pioneering.

3. LEARN TO WAIT and don’t give in to FEAR

Isaiah 54:13 All your children will be taught by the Lord,
    and great will be their peace.
 In righteousness you will be established:
Tyranny will be far from you;
    you will have nothing  to fear.

Sometimes we try to answer our own prayers.

In that moment following my dismissal at my previous church, I could have scrambled, quickly whipped up my resume, chase down churches looking for pastors.  I could have run to the District Office and told them to put in a good work for me…but I didn’t.

When we give in to fear, it is the gateway for the enemy who comes to steal, kill and destroy to gain a foothold in my heart and life.  It can be very crippling to our faith!

Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil…

Here’s the thing, we weren’t meant to set up camp in the valley, we were meant to walk through it!

Isaiah 40:31 KJV But they that wait (hope) upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Exodus 14:14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (at the moment Pharaoh changed his mind about letting the Israelites go)

It is easier said than done especially when you know the finances are running out and you have a family to look after.

Psalm 34:18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted  and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose.

Proverbs 3:5,6  Trust in the LORD with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.

The Takeaway

Take the most barren area of your life and hold it up to God.  As we pray, open your hands to God as an act of faith.

God, I pray that you would take this _________ area (name it) and help me find joy in the most unusual areas this week.