How much more........

I visited some friends recently who are into horse riding. Both daughters ride very well, especially cross country and showjumping. The younger daughter, 12 yrs old, needed a new pony as her abilities as a rider had surpassed her old pony's abilities . God miraculously provided a new pony at a price the family could afford, despite it being worth almost twice that amount. However, when you buy a pony, a vet must give the pony a medical examination to ensure there are no problems before the transaction is completed. While waiting the couple of days for the vetting the girl fell in love with her new pony. She was being bullied quite badly at school and the pony became her outlet and safe place.

When the pony was vetted he failed because of a problem with his rear hock. For a jumping pony this is not good as the rear legs are the power source when jumping but the pony was pulling up lame under certain conditions. The vet and stable owner advised not to buy the pony as it's hock was a liability. The parents were gutted to have to tell their daughter that this pony she had fallen in love with was going to have to be returned. They prayed for the pony's leg and decided to get a second vetting done. Around the same time, a friend who knew nothing of the situation, sent a text saying he had felt to pray for them and the word 'blue' kept coming to mind. He asked "Does the word 'Blue' mean anything to you?". The horses name is "My blue eyed beauty". God was obviously speaking about the horse so they continued to trust that He would heal their horse.

When the second vet examined the horse he found no issues at all. The problem in the rear hock had 'disappeared'.

The thing I love most about this story is that I shows a Father loving His little girl, meeting her where she needed it most. What father, if he had the ability to, would not have done exactly the same? Why wouldn't we expect our Father in heaven to do likewise? How skewed has our understanding become of the one perfect Father that we wouldn't expect this?

Jesus said in Matt 6:11 "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"

If we are convinced the God in heaven is our Father, then we will ask him for things, and he loves it when we do because it demonstrates childlike faith and understanding.

Sowing in Drought

Last week God began to challenge me about some more of my poverty mentalities.

A poverty mentality believes that resources are finite and therefore you have to take from one place to have enough in another, but this is not true in God's Kingdom. His resources are limitless.

About 8 months ago, Bryn was preaching about inheritance, and I struck me that I need to plan to have a material inheritance to pass on to my children, not just a Spiritual one, and it was not God's desire for my being in ministry to disadvantage my children in any way. We get paid a generous salary but I no longer get city bonuses, which were the most obvious way of having extra cash to invest for retirement and inheritance to pass on to my children. However, if I believe that He is my provider, and not my employer, then how much comes from my monthly pay cheque is largely irrelevant. How much He gives me is what determines how much I have to live on, how much to give away and what is left over for investment. As we were in the process of trying to move house at the time, the idea of not selling our current house, but keeping it as an investment and renting it out, arose. The sums do not add up for this, we would need a significant cash/equity injection for this to happen, but this is not beyond God.

However, in October, when we went to speak to a financial adviser about how this would work out, it seemed impossible. If we took equity out of our current house, to use as a deposit on a new house, we would still need a significant cash/equity injection and the debt leverage would mean that the interest rates we would be charged would have us right at the edge of what we could afford. Stretching ourselves to the limit when interest rates are at the lowest they have ever been seemed very unwise, so we discounted the possibility and put our current home on the market to sell. Also nagging in the back of my mind was a prophesy from Sharon Stone, a recognised prophet, in Sept 2008 about God leading his church into a new financial era, one that was not based on extreme debt, but on His provisions and ways. http://www.christiangrowthinternational.org/Articles/126567/Prophecy_by_Dr.aspx Maxing ourselves up on mortgages when interest rates are so low did not make any sense intellectually or spiritually. In the meantime, we received no offers on our house.

Then last week God began to remind me of the things He had said over the previous 9 months. A prophetic word about God wanting to bless our family financially and telling us not to worry about where the provision would come from, Him speaking about inheritance and then Ryan's word over KingsGate about God saying 2011 would be a year of prosperity. As Bryn preached on Sunday evening, he spoke about a 'realm of the impossible' where people trusted God for impossible things. Angus Buchan's story of sowing potatoes during a drought in response to God's word came back to mind, as did another conversation the day before about Elisha telling the kings of Judah and Israel to dig trenches in the desert to contain and channel the water God would send (2Kings 3:16 - 19).

Father asked me what would prosperity look like for me in our house situation. Without doubt, my first prize would be to keep our current house as an investment, and to buy another. He then asked me what I would do to the house if I was going to rent it out. Our windows are currently old single glazed windows and need replacing. We applied for planning permission in the past to do this, but were refused as we live in a conservation area, and you can't install standard uPVC windows. The council will, however, give a 50% grant to install steel double glazed windows, which fit in with the character of the area, that they want to maintain.

So there is our trench, our potatoes, our seed. It makes no economic sense to replace the windows in our house if we plan to sell it and in the natural, we cannot afford to keep it and buy another house. but then it made no sense to dig water trenches in the desert or to sow potatoes in a drought.

I believe Father is looking for people who will take his prophetic words at face value and start living as if the future was present reality. After all, that is in essence what faith is, being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we have not yet seen (Heb 11:1). If we believe that He is our provider, that His resources are unlimited and that He want's us to prosper in every way, not just financially, then surely we must put plans in place now to contain His blessings when He releases them in the future. As I said on a previous post, this doesn't leverage His hand open or make Him owe us. It just says "Father, I know you are good and you are true to your word" Therefore, I'm going to act like the future is now.

Have a great Christmas as we celebrate Father's lavish goodness to us in every way, past present and future.

How do we live in His blessings?

After my last post on 'A Debtors Ethic' the next obvious question must be "If we don't live under Fathers blessings by giving to receive, how do we live under His blessing?" Lets face it, all of us want to live in blessing and abundance.

I think the first thing that has to be said is that God himself is the ultimate prize. His presence, His voice and His touch are the greatest blessing we can have on this earth. In Genesis 15:2 God says to Abram "I am your very great reward". There is no greater reward we can have, and we can have this no matter what our circumstance are. We simply spend time with Him, cultivate our relationship with Him and our reward increases. The more we experience this the more we know it to be true. Verses like "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere(Ps 84:10)" or "as the deer pants for the water so my soul longs after you (Ps 42:1)" used to be merely theory to me, words that might have meant something to someone else but not my reality. However, as I have learned to spend time in Fathers presence, I am beginning, slowly, to understand what the writer is talking about. He is the ultimate prize.

Having said that, the bible speaks too often and too emphatically about us living in material blessing for us to settle for the rewards Jesus spoke of being confined to the spiritual. In some ways, settling for our rewards just being spiritual, means we don't have faith for the tangible, just the intangible.

So how do we have faith for and experience the tangible outpouring of Father's blessings? I believe the two keys are position and positioning. Let me explain with an analogy. As I said last time, I believe Father's hands are always fully open to bless. I deliberately used the word 'outpouring'. If you imagine Fathers blessings being poured out like a flow of water. The flow never changes but I've got to stand under the flow to get wet. How do I position myself under the flow?

Position - Firstly, as I grow in revelation and understanding of my status as a son (or daughter), as I gaze into my Fathers face and am filled by His love and affection, His light illuminates dark corners of my heart and I can recognise them and allow Him in to heal, restore and set me free. Me being confronted with a debtors ethic lurking deep within is a pertinent example. As I was spending time with Father, He reminded me of some things and then showed me the thought processes behind them. As I spend time with Him and allow Him to change me, I become more like Him, I become more a son in experience, not just in status, and this ongoing process brings me continually closer to Him and therefore more under the flow of His outpouring.

Positioning - Secondly, as a son, spending time in my Father's presence, my will is transformed to align with His. I increasingly do things His way and think His way. I submit my will to His will, not because I am afraid of the consequences if I don't, but because I love Him and want to do what He wants. As I think His way and do thing His way, I walk closer to Him and so come under a greater measure of His outpouring. Jesus said in Mat 5:5 "Blesses are the meek for they will inherit the earth". Inheriting the earth sounds like material blessings now and that goes to those who are meek, bridled to and submitted to a greater Authority.

Jesus said in Jn 15:7 "if you remain, live, dwell and are rooted in my love, and my words remain, live, dwell and take root in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." This remaining is not a once for all, static and passive status. It is an ongoing cultivation of a relationship as with any human relationship.

Often we think that Father is withholding His blessings from us when actually the reality is He is still pouring out His blessings, we are just not correctly positioned to receive it.

So to summarise, we come under Father's outpoured blessing, not by doing things to try and get Him to adjust His aim, but rather by pressing into Him understanding who we are. As we get closer to Him, in experience as well as status, we come under His outpouring. Which takes us nicely back to where we started. He is our very great reward. When we pursue Him, we experience His benefits. When we pursue the benefits we can end up missing out on everything.

Jesus said in Matt 6:33 "seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all the other things will be added to you". Search for the Giver and you'll find you get the gifts. Search for the gifts and you get neither the Giver nor the gifts.

A Debtors Ethic

I have realised recently that somewhere deep inside my psyche resides a debtors ethic. What does this mean? At it's most basic level, it means I give to get something in return and when I receive something, I think I must repay it as I am indebted to someone. When something is given, subconsciously at least, I then begin to wait for payback.

Where does this come from? I'm not 100% sure, but most people carry it to some degree. Is it because we tell our children they must be good so that Santa will bring them presents ( i.e that presents are a reward for good behaviour, not freely given) or that they will only get a gift when parents return if they have been good for the babysitter, or they'll get a gift if they succeed in their exams? How's that a gift? It's recompense for good behaviour or achievement.

Anyway, whatever the reason, somehow, I understood that my generosity and my giving were necessary to unlock Father's generosity and goodness, and if I'm not seeing as much generosity and goodness released on my life as I want/need, then I need to do something more to unlock what I want. Writing it down now it sounds like 'giving karma'!

The idea of unlocking Father's generosity and goodness is flawed. He is always generous and good. I may need to be obedient to his ways to fully come under the outpouring of His generosity and goodness but his hand is never closed and never requires unlocking.

His generosity and goodness are poured out unconditionally. My giving cannot prize his hand open any wider because it's already fully open. He is the initiator and gives freely. We then give freely in response. We do not even owe a debt of love. Love cannot repay what He has poured out for us. Love cannot balance the books and He doesn't want our love out of indebtedness. Rather as our hearts are filled with His freely given, unconditional, no-strings-attached love the desire rises up in us to love in response, not to repay, just to respond.

If I live by a debtors ethic, I only come under God's ways i.e obey Him, for what I can get from Him and not because I want to be with Him. Last time I checked, that called using someone. I'll come to your house and be your friend because then you'll let me play with your xbox.

If this is my motivation, what do I do if His blessings and favour don't look like what I wanted/needed? What if he blesses my marriage with new depths of intimacy when I was giving to Him, expecting to see financial blessing? What if I start to see a load of my family or friends turn to Jesus when I was hoping for a job promotion? In Matt 6:4,6&8 Jesus says"Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you". He doesn't specify what the reward will be, and certainly there is no mention of it correlating to the righteous acts mentioned. Do I stop being obedient to God's ways because the slot machine is not rewarding me in the way I'd hoped/prescribed? I'm not getting the required return on investment. Living like this almost guarantees disappointment and unmet expectations.

The words of that song "You wont relent until my heart is yours' ring very true right now, but at least there is the real comfort of knowing that Father only exposes our defects to set us free of them, not to humiliate us. Good fathers discipline their sons, because they see the son's future.

Set up for success

Great Dad's set their kids up for success. Everything they do is training and equipping their kids to be successful in their own lives. In fact, probably the greatest tribute to any dad, is when his kids pass him out and succeed him, because he set them up for it.

How does a dad sets his kids up for success? Well, first and foremost is the example he sets them, integrity, diligence, how to treat people, kids watch everything and absorb even the smallest things. The next most important thing is the environment he creates for them. Encouragement, affirmation and protection all enable kids to prosper, to experiment, to take risks and to learn to succeed. Great dads cover their kids mistakes and failures so that fear of failure doesn't become their dominant emotion. Then risk taking becomes a positive experience and the chances of a successful outcome dramatically increases. A person who grows up believing they will fail, or afraid of the consequences of failure, usually does fail.

So what's all this got to do with our Father, God?
Like all great dad's He sets a great example. In fact He sets the perfect example. Jesus, divested himself of his divine attributes and came to earth as a man, constrained and confined by the same limitations as we have. Yet he lived a perfect life, not only not doing anything wrong, but doing everything right. He was perfect in every way, demonstrating to us how we too can do it, if we live by the power of the Holy Spirit, as he did.
But he didn't just set us a perfect example, he gives us everything we need to follow his example. When Jesus died on the cross he fully paid the legal penalty for each time every one of us has broken God's law, past, present and future. In fact he cancelled the laws under which we stood convicted, making them obsolete. He says if we believe in Him, He will create a new spirit inside us, one that is free of the addiction to breaking God's laws, free of the injuries and behaviour patterns that come with addiction, free of the inability to know God intimately, free to be the children of God we were originally designed to be. It's like He not only paid off our debts but He's also given us the downpayment for a new life. He's done everything to set us up for success. The only thing we have to do is accept the free gift. It would seem crazy not to.

He doesn't want rules, He wants you!

Many peoples idea of Christianity is a rather long set of rules and rituals which must be obeyed. If you manage to obey these rules, you get to count yourself in the category of 'good people' and you go to heaven when you die. Very few things could be further from what God intended for us.

Obeying rules is the lowest form of relationship that exists - I do what you say to avoid unpleasant consequences - in fact it stretches the term relationship to extremes. In normal human relationships we adjust our behaviour out of respect or affection for another person and their sensibilities. When I first met my wife, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I'd made a bed in my life, but becasue she is a tidy person, I have adjusted my behaviour to such an extent, that I now even make the bed when she is away. She didn't stipulate that I had to do this, I just learned what made her happy and changed.

It works fairly similarly with God. If you get to know the Person first, fall in love with the Person, then lifestyle changes don't seem such a big deal, in fact they seem obvious. Try and make those same changes before you know the Person and you will just end up resenting it. It's called religion and it stinks. Relationship is not about what you do or don't do, it's about who your with.

The amazing thing is that God, the perfect Father was so deteremined to make it possible for you and me to get to know Him, that He took it on Himself to remove the obstacles between us.

People often question some of the rules and practises in the Old Testament and struggle to reconcile them with the loving Father I am describing now. All those strange rules about food and clothing, all those strange practises of segregating people, all that destruction of people, cities and nations are all designed to show how serious our rebellion against God is. God is prefectly holy, which means He is 100% perfect in every way, not that He is a prude who never does anything wrong (or fun). Every rebellion against His perfection is an absolute affront to His perfection and so He commanded the things we see in the Old Testament to show just how serious this is. But amazingly, God then sent His own son as the ultimate substitute for us.

All of God's correct fury and anger against us, all the fury and anger that wiped out cities with fire and brimstone, all the fury and anger than wiped out the world in a flood, all the fury and anger that wiped out whole people groups was poured out on Jesus. Is it any wonder that it says Jesus became deeply distressed and said "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" as He prayed in the garden anticipating His death. His apprehension related more to the anticipation of God's fury more than the physical agony! As Jesus died on the cross it is recorded that he cried out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me". This was not a question but a cry of anguish as the full weight of God's anger vented against him and he died.

The point of all this is that becasue Jesus did this, God's anger against all rebellion is now fully satisfied. The penalty has been paid in full, the 'time has been served', justice has been done and been seen to be done. In fact God would be unjust if He was still angry. The only things left for us to do is to accept this free offer and to begin to rebuild the relationship.

If God's so good, why's there so much pain?

One of questions I get asked most frequently when talking to people is "If God is so good and loving, and He's all powerful and knows everything, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?"

If God really loves us and cares for us why doesn't He stop the bad stuff happening? What sort of father would just sit back and watch as their child got badly hurt without trying to do something to stop it?

It's a very fair question and one, unfortunately, which has drawn either a very trite, patronising answer from Christians in many cases or else a dismissive and uncaring answer. Neither accurately reflect God the Father, and they often compound the questioners doubts or hurts.


So why does God allow both natural and personal disasters to happen if He loves us so much? I'm going to try and answer that from a biblical viewpoint in a way that gives a real answer to very real pain. It's impossible to give a short answer to a complex question, but I'll try to be as succinct as I can.

The bible tells us that God created the world and it that it was good. There was no pain, to disasters, no violence, no suffering. That’s the way God intended it to be and man and woman lived in harmony with each other, their environment and with God. God had placed mankind in a garden with the instruction to spread out and subdue the earth (Gen 1:28). Subdue what? If Adam and Eve were the only people on the earth at that time, what were they to subdue? Inside the garden, up to that point, God ruled. Outside it, the devil ruled. The prophet Isaiah (14:12) speaks of the devil being cast out of heaven for opposing God, and being cast down to the earth. The devils sole purpose is to destroy everything that God has made and takes pleasure in. Therefore God's creation is number one in the devils firing line.

The devil approached Eve and created doubt about God's character. (Gen 3:1 - 4) "Did God really say 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?".........."You will not surely die"......"God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God". The father of lies speaks his native language (Jn 8:44) as he questions the goodness of God's character and says God is a killjoy and the only reason he doesn't want you to do that is to prevent you knowing things that only He knows. The devil appeals to human pride and desire for knowledge and Eve is deceived into disobeying God.

Now the bit that explains why this is all relevant to the original question. When we disagree with God and oppose Him, by default we are coming into agreement with the devil and what he wants, and when we do that we give him authority in our lives. Hence, when Adam and Eve agreed with the devil and did what he wanted, his ways of death, pain and discord entered the world.

The devil is regularly referred to as the 'prince of this world' (Jn 12:31, Jn 14:30, Jn 16:11) because mans agreement with him has given him authority in this world. When Jesus was tempted by the devil (Matt 4:8-10) and the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world saying he would give them to Jesus if he would bow down and worship him, Jesus did not contest the devils right to offer all the kingdoms of the world, he simply refused to bow to the devils bait.

The very real stuff which mess up peoples lives, whether caused by natural disasters or the badness of other people, happen because the devil loves to mess up God's creation and he has the authority to do it, because humans have given him that authority by coming into agreement with him in opposition to God.

But he's even more scurrilous than that! Not only does he take deep pleasure from destroying peoples lives, but his pleasure meter goes off the scale when he can continue his lies and deception to get us to blame God for what has happened. Why, for example, does the insurance industry call a natural disaster like an earthquake an "act of God" and not an "act of the devil"? Because the devil continues to play the same two cards he's played since the very beginning of time, sowing doubt about God's character and then bringing deception. He says "How can God be good if this happened to you?", "He can't be good, He mustn't care" or "maybe He does care, He just can't do anything about it"

God does care and He did do something about it. He cared so much that He sent His own son to take our punishment for breaking His own laws. Now that the debt we owed has been paid, our relationship with God can be restored and with it our authority to subdue the devils kingdom.

Jesus instruction to us in Matt 10:7-8 was preach that God's kingdom is near, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy and drive out demons. Our mandate is to execute God's judgement on the devils kingdom, by reversing what he loves to do, messing up God's creating.

The sad reality is that so few of us Christians have actually lived this, that we too have compounded the devils deception. Hurting people have the devil telling them God can't or won’t help them and Christians, who should know better, not exercising the authority they have been given as sons and daughters God to heal, restore and set free. Is it any wonder Rom 8:19 tells us all creation groans, like a mother in labour, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed?

The world is crying out in pain waiting for help, while God's sons and daughters, as those he has delegated to bring healing, restoration and freedom, look from one to the other wondering who is going to take the first step. It is time for God's children across the world to stand up, apologise to a hurting world that we didn't help sooner and get down and dirty telling people God's kingdom is close by, healing the sick, raising the dead, setting those who are oppressed mentally and physically free and drawing in the outcast and marginalised. Then people will know that it is the devil who brings pain and suffering but the loving Father who protects, heals, restores and sets free.

Jesus said (Jn 10:10) "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full."