|
|
|---|
Jesus loves us. Nothing we can ever do or don’t do will make him love us more or love us less. Be washed in the water of his forgiveness. Swim in the ocean of his unconditional love. Fly high in the atmosphere of his grace. Forgive others as he has forgiven us. Surround others with the loving kindness with which he covers us. God is love. Let us love each other as he has loved us.
In the film, ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ the story starts and ends with a man surrounded by a field of crosses. They represent ordinary shop keepers, farmers, business men and plumbers who gave their lives so that others could be free. At the end of the film, Ryan, now aged and surrounded by family and friends, kneels weeping before the cross representing the soldier who sacrificed his life so that Ryan could have and enjoy his life.
Many of these soldiers died in the line of duty. Some were there because they had to be. Large numbers of them, though were there because they put into practice their belief that freedom is worth dying for. And they gave up their lives so that we could be free. You might think for a moment, that Jesus was like them. No, this is not so. He is the ideal man, the ultimately real man. They were like Him, ‘Who gave himself a ransom for all. (1Tim. 2:5,6).
When God created us he breathed into us his life (Gen. 2:7). We lost this life through disobedience but Jesus won it back through his obedience and his cross. When he rose again, the resurrected Jesus ’breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (John 20:22). Ask for his Spirit now. Say, ‘Jesus, breathe on me. I love you and want more of you in my life. Make me to be all that you want me to be.’ The Spirit takes what is His and gives it to us. As Jesus breathes on us today we receive his forgiveness, his intimacy with the Father, his healing of our bodies and our relationships. We receive his life, his love and his power to love. We receive his power to live, his victory over guilt, fear and defeat. Jesus has risen and it is rising that empowers us to rise over the circumstances that exist in our families and churches. Receive him and rise with him!
Pray this prayer with me. Jesus, breathe on me. Breathe your presence, your life and your loving into me. Send your Spirit into my family and my church. Saturate me with your loving kindness, your gentleness and your strength. Make me strong in my love for you and for those you have given me..
‘Breathe on me breath of God,
Love and life that makes me free
Breathe on me breath of God
Fan the flame within me
Teach my heart and heal my soul
Speak the mind that in Christ we know
Take me to your sanctuary..
..Breathe on me.’
(Lucy Fisher, 1998. Hillsongs Australia, SHOUT TO THE LORD 2000 CD)
D.A. CARSON in the introduction to his book, THE PATH TO SPIRITUAL REFORMATION, makes these observations about the church’s need for power.
Some in the church say that we need purity in sexual and reproductive matters. But let’s be frank. Some societies experience high degrees of sexual rectitude without much knowledge of God.
Other’s say the church’s most urgent need is a combination of generosity and integrity in the financial area. But candour forces us to recognise that there are societies far less devoted to the creed of greed than we are, yet they do not know God.
Well then, we need more evangelism and church planting. But we must candidly come to grips with several alarming facts. Carefully studies reveal that five years after a world class evangelistic event between 2-4% of those who made a commitment are actually persevering in the faith. Add to this the reality of the fact that people can be ever so Christian without there being any effect on ethics, morality, self sacrifice and integrity.
Perhaps then we need more disciplined Biblical thinking. Yet some Biblical scholars are neither edifying, life-giving or guileless.
[Then he concludes]The one thing we need most urgently in Western Christianity is to know God better.
The article that follows addresses the quality, of our own spirituality and intimacy with God.
Jesus died so that we can be one with God. He lives to draw us in to himself. Union with God is the goal of life. A spiritual leader has more than a head knowledge of Christian doctrine. A spiritual leader has offered himself or herself to God. A spiritual leader knows the meaning of submission and surrender and the struggle that goes with it. The cry of a spiritual leader is, 'Lord more of you.' A spiritual leader is God's person, his representative, his servant. A spiritual leader walks and talks with God on a daily basis. A spiritual leader knows God, is known by God, loves God and experiences his love personally. A spiritual leader is a person who has bonded with Jesus. A spiritual leader has been anointed by the Holy Spirit. There is a flow of God's power into a spiritual leader that flows out again, to touch the lives of other people.
A spiritual leader offers the life he or she has absorbed from Jesus to other people. The paradox of the spiritual leader is that the more the leader has submitted to God, the more human he or she has become. Spiritual leaders have a deep connection to God, to themselves and to other people. Spiritual leaders are led by the Spirit. Spirituality is not about knowledge. It's about relating to God, to themselves and to other people.
The word spiritual is obviously connected to the word spirit. Yet the secular person is a materialist. And so are many Christians. By materialist I do not mean money hungry. I mean possessed of the view that what you see, hear and touch is all there is. The secular religionist may juggle religious concepts and analyse beliefs to his hearts content, but what he is doing is not really spiritual (although he thinks it is). It's just a re-arrangement of knowledge on the theological draft board. We are spiritual beings and this kind of superficiality can never satisfy our spiritual hunger. This is why Jesus called himself the 'Water of Life.' He offers water to the spiritually thirsty. 'Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters..Come, buy without cost'(Isa. 55:1). Spiritual leaders do the same when the water of life they have obtained from Jesus flows from them, bringing refreshment to those around them. We must drink ourselves if we are to quench the thirst of others. WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THOUGH, THAT INFORMATION IS NOT IN ITSELF SPIRITUAL.
The secular Christian has trouble with the spiritual. Our world view tells us that the material is all there is, but the Bible is book of the spiritual and of spirits. God is a spirit and we are urged to worship him in spirit and in truth. The secular Christian mind finds it hard to get a handle on spirit, so it focuses on truth. In this secular environment the Christian ignores the nuances of spirituality. That airy-fairy stuff is not for him. He longs for something more concrete and 'real.' He or she finds this in Bible doctrine, in debates and arguments. Remember the scribes and Pharisees? They were good at this. They were stunned at the wisdom of the young Jesus. His wisdom was superior to theirs. I believe this was because Jesus knew the difference between religion and spirituality. Do you?
Jesus said, 'Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him'(Matt. 13:12).We get spirituality by being filled with the Spirit. By asking for the Holy Spirit to enter our lives, not by talking about him, discussing him and analysing him. People with spiritual authority are filled with the spirit because they have intentionally and specifically asked for this to take place. They may have done this in the privacy of their bedroom or they may have done it in public. Those who would be spiritual leaders must note the fact that all Christians have the Spirit, but not all have this infilling to the same degree. We are filled with the Spirit according to our hunger for Jesus and our thirst to be filled and empowered by God. Quite simply, those who hunger and thirst for more of God get more of him. Those who are sufficient unto themselves don't. Spiritual leaders have a passion for Jesus and a thirst for God. Spirituality is not really something we can acquire by gathering information. But it may be received through relationship and connection to other persons.
Spirituality is a quality we inherit from God. It is a quality of being human. Those who have acquired a deep relationship with God, themselves, other people and the environment in which they live understand more of spirituality than those who have reduced religion to 'concept juggling, and 'word mongering.' The Spirit of God flows through the spirits of people and through the entire creation. To be spiritual we must absorb God. We must repeatedly say, 'Lord come in and live in me.' We must give ourselves time to soak him into our entire being. Needless to say, we cannot absorb him into our human spirits like a sponge, if our time with him is limited to a couple of minutes at the start or the end of a day. We need to spend time just being with God, praising him, thanking him and enjoying him.
We cannot receive him at church if our notion of sermon is simply to hear a mentally stimulating monologue. A good sermon is one that offers an opportunity for our human spirit to be filled with more of God's Spirit. A good sermon is an encounter with God. In a good sermon there is a flow of power from God to ourselves and a flow of love and adoration from ourselves to God. It is this flow of spiritual power that will change your life. It is this flow of spiritual power that changes us from being operatives in the flesh to Spirit filled leaders. Do you go about your church tasks in the power of the Spirit? You can. Jesus baptises with the power of the Holy Spirit (John 1:33). You can ask him to do this for you right now. Say, 'Lord, I want to offer spiritual leadership for you in my church, school or work place. Baptise me with the Holy Spirit. Let those rivers of water flow out of me to quench the thirst of others. Thank you Lord. Amen'.
The secular Christian worships words about God as if they are God because in a material world, material man finds it easier to relate to something he can see than something he can't see. The rationale behind this worship of 'text' is similar to the reasoning behind the idol worship of the early inhabitants of the earth. They said, 'We can't see God so we'll make a concrete likeness of him.' The rebellious Israelites did the same thing with the golden calf at the bottom of Mt Sinai. Modern Christians find it difficult to put a meaningful handle on 'spirit' and spirituality, so they worship something they can see: Bible Doctrine. You may think that this is a bit harsh. But people 'worship' the things that they spend the most time doing, the things that absorb their attention the most.
There is a solution to this, but it's not to be found in a thicket of doctrine or more Adventists forums. It's to be found in the person of Jesus Christ. We need to face the fact that Christianity is not a religion. It's a person. Jesus is the most spiritual, the most real person that has ever lived. He is a physical example of spiritual man. And he was always filled with the Spirit. To become a spiritual leader you must invite him to live his life in you. You must relate intimately to him. This requires obedience, submission and the abandonment of self sufficiency. Jesus was in complete submission to his father and led by the Holy Spirit. The secular world of the flesh admires the notion of the self made man. But this is a fleshly un-spiritual outlook, antithetical to spiritual leadership. If you've got self sufficiency give it up, because there's no such things as a self made spiritual leader. Self sufficiency robs us of spiritual credibility and the potential to lead spiritually. This is because the Kingdom of God does not consist of self made people. It is made up of re-made people. In Ephesians Paul says, 'We neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and the saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does.'1
Saul of Tarsus made the transition from leadership in the flesh to leadership in the Spirit. He is a type of all who have done so and an example of the potential that we all have to lead spiritually, when we die to self and live to Christ. Until we do this we often waste our leadership potential quenching the Spirit and speaking ill of those who have found their freedom in Christ. Paul said, 'To this end I labour, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me' (Col. 1:29). It was the amazing energy of Jesus that emanated from Paul's life and ministry. The power that makes a difference in our lives and changes us from secular operatives to spiritual leaders is spiritual power that comes from God. It's not information, it's not education and it's not expertise. IT'S NAKED SPIRITUAL POWER. 'That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms' (Eph. 1:19,20). Anyone of us can have this power right now, if we ask for it. This power not only raises dead churches, but raises secular leaders to their true potential in Christ.
Keith Allen
1 Page 476, The Message Bible, Eugene Petersen.
“For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from men, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:11-12).
The Bible is not a “how-to” book. Neither is it a history book, a religious crystal ball, or a philosophy book. The Bible is a revelation of Jesus Christ. Indeed, you will learn many informative and edifying truths reading the Bible, but the manifest life you should experience is the actual life of Jesus Christ, not mere knowledge. The Biblical word translated in English “revelation” means “to unveil.” When the Holy Spirit directs you in the Scriptures, it is to unveil or reveal Jesus Christ to you. We must go beyond studying the doctrinal words to discover the Living Word: the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, to the Pharisees, Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness to Me” (John 5:39). The purpose of the written word is to “bear witness” to Jesus. Jesus revealed Himself to men, who then wrote about Him. The Bible is a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Many books deal with end-time events. All of them, invariably, include the author's interpretation of the Book of Revelation. But the Revelation of John is not merely a revelation of end-time events. Its primary purpose is stated in the first verse: “The revelation of Jesus Christ.” The Book of Revelation is reduced to a “book of speculations” by those who fail to see Jesus continually revealed victoriously throughout its pages. In every apocalyptic warning there are those who, through following Christ, triumph over the beast, defeat the false prophet, and are protected from the dragon.
As for the opening of the seals and the events that followed, each judgement is like the blast of a mighty trumpet, heralding the return of Jesus Christ into the world! The final three chapters speak of the return of the Lord and the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, where the unveiled glory of the Lord replaces every other form of light. Again, this book is “the revelation of Jesus Christ”!
The fact is, the entire Bible is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It was Christ who revealed Himself to Abraham (John 8:56), then Moses (Num 12:8), David (Ps 110:1; Matt 22:43) and Isaiah (Is 6:1, Jn 12:41). Indeed, no man has seen the Father at any time (1 John 4:12); every time there was an unveiling of the Godhead in the Old Testament, it was Christ who appeared, and Christ who spoke to man (Phil 2:6; Col 2:6; 1 Pet 1:11; John 1:3).
“But when He who had set me apart, even from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles…” (Gal 1:15).
Not only is the Bible a revelation of Jesus Christ, but the church, as Christ's body, is also called to reveal Him. Indeed, what body is there whose words and works do not reveal the thoughts and desires of the head? When a body does not function according to the will of the head, that body is sick or crippled. Christ's body is to be the revelation of its glorious head, Jesus.
Too often, the church exalts programs, doctrines and rituals; but, where is Jesus? Jesus' hands cannot help others if our hands are in our pockets. His love cannot reach others if our love has grown cold or bitter. His victory cannot be manifested if our prayers are silent. We are His body, the means He has chosen to express and reveal Himself to the world! “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” (I Cor 6:15).
Because the Spirit of Christ actually dwells in our spirits, our bodies literally become the body of Christ. Even as the purpose of the Bible is to reveal Jesus, so the primary purpose of your body is to give Jesus the means to be manifested. As far as the Spirit of Christ is concerned, the only way He can enter this world is through “a body [God] has prepared” (Heb 10:5). When Jesus first revealed Himself to the world, it was through a body that was shaped and prepared in the womb of Mary. Since Pentecost, Christ is made visible in this world through a “many membered body” consisting of His people.
(AUTHOR UNKNOWN)
Seven Principles with which To Empower Your Life and Your Church
• God does perform signs and wonders today.
• Jesus said that we are to preach and demonstrate his power with miracles.
• Prayer makes a difference to you, your church and the world at large.
• God wants us to carry out his plans, not ours.