This past weekend I
walked through Step 4 of NA with one of our Manor peeps that I have been on a
journey with for close to three years now.
Step 4 is “making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves”. It was
encouraging to be at this place in our friendship reached this level of
trust. I was open with him as well and
it gave us opportunity to really put the past to bed through confession, experiencing the power of God’s forgiveness, desire to heal and restore.
Another eye opening
experience for me was to visit one of our Manor peeps on a regular basis who
was in T1 at Homewood. (Trillium One is a lock down facility of the mental
health center. Those instituted here
have only access to their room with a bed and not even pens are allowed).The
first time I visited him it felt like all hell was breaking loose. Shortly after I was there, all one person
could do was continue scream and rant taking Jesus’ Name continually in vain. Doors were slamming as another person there
just shouted, “I want to end my life”. Nurses were running and my friend looked
at me and said, I think there is an awareness of the anointing here or more so
the presence of Jesus! We prayed
together, praying for those who looked so tormented in their spirit. He was there for six weeks and I’m happy to
say he is now out and is experiencing real freedom. He has taken the time to meet with his father
and then mother to apologize for the hurt he caused over the years. God restores relationships
I recently had the
opportunity to officiate a wedding for one of my former youth from London, ON,
Adam Larocque and now, his wife, Lisa!
Keep her in your prayers as she battles cancer. We believe in the victory that Jesus has over
sickness! It is great to reunite in
friendship and hard to believe that it
was 20 years ago that Sharon and I left London to take a ministry position in
Cloverdale, BC…time flies!
At Church at the
Manor, we have just finished walking through Exodus as I can’t say enough about
the clarity and overall excellence provided by the Bible Project series
videos. Check it out here. https://www.youtube.com/user/jointhebibleproject
As we reviewed the
second half of Exodus we saw the incredible patience of our loving God. After His people agreed to the terms of the
covenant through the giving of the 10 commandments, it took no less than 40
days to break the first two commands of the covenant with God by having a
golden calf made for worship. It really
seems hard to believe that after hearing the commands, seeing the thunder and
lightning, a mountain in smoke and the sound of a trumpet, that it could all be
forgotten so quickly! A hymn writer summed
it up best when he wrote the words, “prone to wander, LORD, I feel it, prone to
leave the God I love.” I know in my own
life that intimacy with God can be lost just as quickly as it is experienced. It is for that very reason that we need to
jealousy guard it against all distractions.
The commandments were
specifically designed around two things: worship and social justice and Jesus
made that clear when He told us to love the LORD our God with all our heart,
soul, strength and mind and love our neighbour as ourselves.
The overall theme that
we see in Genesis continues in Exodus and that is that God wants to bless all
nations through His line, first Abraham and then His descendants, Israel. They were to be a kingdom of priests to represent
God to the nations and intercede. Fast
forward to the New Testament and we are the royal priesthood in 1 Peter 2:9
called to the same purpose!
Every time Israel
sinned and every time we sin, we lose access to the presence of God and lose
sight of our purpose. They had the
tabernacle and the priests, but we have the throne of grace that we can boldly
come to and the Great High Priest! We
are called to a depth of intimacy with God like no other.
When God is seen in
His frustration with His children’s lack of obedience, it is from Moses’ life
that we learn we can hurt God like the NT teaches us about grieving the Holy
Spirit. We also learn the power of
intercession and a God who relents!
We read in Exodus 34:6
And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the
compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and
faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness,
rebellion and sin.
And as the second part
of the verse goes on to say that He does not leave the guilty unpunished, we
thank God for His indescribable gift in His Son Jesus, who took upon Himself
the guilt of our sins and who breaks the chains of generational sin. It is for freedom that Christ has set us
free, no longer to be subject to a yoke of slavery!!
Also, please check out Sharon's new blog or should I more accurately say, vlog as she has some great video stories at http://holyspiritand.me/
