Are you Spirit Baptised and Filled?

Pentecost – what a day, what an event!

Before Jesus went back to heaven he said that he was going to send One just like himself, One who would be in us and remain with us. Now sat down at the right hand of the Father he sends the Spirit, and my, how he came! I’m not sure they new what to expect, but when he came it was evident, a mighty rushing wind, tongues of fire, speaking in other tongues… church had never been like this!

Throughout the book of Acts the Spirit turns up again and again, in similar and different ways, and as the story unfolds you get the sense of a real dynamic at work – God present speaking, guiding and empowering…..

We need to remember, they didn’t have the Bible as we have it, they didn’t have the structures we have, they didn’t have the programs we have, they didn’t have the technology we have…. but what a church, and what a missional impact.

Today in the church at large we have the Word (in multiple versions), various structures, an endless array of programs, and a powerful array of technology.

As a young person I sat in chapel and wondered about the disconnect between what I saw and experienced and what I saw in the Bible – something was missing. Then I encountered Pentecostals. Well this was different, and they still believed in and experienced the Spirit in ways I had never known – but was it really for today? were they of the devil?

Over time a hunger grew…. then one day God met me, the Spirit came, he filled me and I spoke in tongues (even tough I was still struggling to believe in all these things due to the cessationist theology I was brought up with). The Christian life took on a new and powerful spiritual dimension – what I believed, became real and powerful, suddenly I was energised and enabled to witness like I had never done – God was present with me.

This shy and retiring guy felt the call of God, and the Spirit enabled. The guy who wouldn’t speak unless he was spoken to, suddenly found himself empowered to lead worship, preach the Word, go out door to door…. all because He had come. The Spirit made the difference.

Then over the years I found that I backed off due to the abuse of the gifts and some of what was being said and done in the name of the Spirit. I found myself becoming sceptical even cynical, and my experience began to dry up. At one point I felt like going back to straightforward evangelicalism, only to come under the conviction that I would be denying what I knew to be part of God’s Word. I couldn’t do it. God had to get me through, and he did. Abuse and mis-use should not lead to no-use.

I wonder where you are today, maybe you’ve seen some stuff that turned you off, maybe seen or been on the end of the abuse of gifts and today you are in a backwater?

Are you reliant on an intellectual knowledge of the Word?

Are you reliant on your own personality, abilities and or strength?

Are you reliant on your own ability to make music, turn up the sound, create an atmosphere?

Are you still doing it like you did yesterday, afraid to listen to the fresh wind of the Spirit?

Are you dependent on the structures of your church, the way you’ve always done it, afraid to listen to the Spirit?

Don’t settle for false fire, don’t settle for no fire and don’t settle smouldering embers.

It’s time to open up again to the fresh wind of the Spirit, don’t allow the enemy to rob you of what God wants to give you – why don’t you stop and take time to open up to God, to welcome afresh the gift of Spirit.

A Forgotten Truth - The Continuing Incarnation

What does the ascension mean to you?

Most of us are familiar with the birth of Christ, his life, death and resurrection, and the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost, but when it comes to the ascension that’s another matter, yet without the ascension there would be no Pentecost, a glorious and powerful experience of the presence and power of God in a tangible way.

But there is something else, something that is fundamental to our faith: without the ascension we are missing the continuing dynamic of Christ’s incarnation – a powerful truth, as powerful as his birth.

Scripture declares in no uncertain terms that the Word, God, took on “flesh like ours under sin’s domain” (Rom 8:4), made in “every way like” those he came to save (Heb 2:17). When Jesus came to earth the second person of the Trinity took on human flesh. He didn’t stop being God. He added flesh to God. The big question is what happened when he went back to heaven, did he stop being man?

As with the incarnation, so with the ascension we are in another realm.

What’s at stake here? If Jesus ceased to be man, we have no true advocate and no certain hope.

Praise God, Jesus continues to be the incarnate Son – no less. In the same way that when Jesus came to earth and took on flesh he didn’t stop being God, when he ascended to heaven he didn’t stop being human, carrying our flesh, carrying our humanity. Staggering thought isn’t it! Just as much as the incarnation itself, if not more so!

The glory of the ascension is that Jesus has redeemed, reconciled, healed and transformed our humanity and carried it right into the heart of the Trinity, and our lives are now hidden in him in the Godhead – wow, wow and wow!

That means today there is a man, a real man, Very God and Very Man, at God’s right hand who is a true and wonderful representative.

It is in this context that the writer to the Hebrews is able to say, “Therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens-Jesus the Son of God-let us hold fast to the confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are yet without sin. Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.” Heb 4:14-16.

Great thought isn’t it – we have One who sympathises with us right in the heart of the Trinity, One who is our true Representative and Advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1).

As they used to say, “There is a Man in the glory.”

That also gives us hope of the resurrection – a man is already there, one who has conquered death and hell, and now lives eternally before the Father and the Spirit.

And here’s another thought – something has eternally changed in the Godhead…. The second Person of the Trinity, will now forever be Very God and Very Man! Chew on it! Be blessed by it!

Bible references: Holman Christian Standard Bible - http://hcsb.org/ and http://www.mystudybible.com/

Everyday is a Miracle!

Driving, walking, riding around these last few days one can’t help but notice that Spring has indeed sprung!

Suddenly the earth has responded to the increasing warmth of the Sun, and the world is awash with glorious colour – there’s Daffodils, Tulips, Primroses, Aubrietia, Forsythia, the fresh and varied greens of new leaf appearing … Suddenly out of the death of winter life bursts forth in an amazing array. Wow!

Looking at it and enjoying it I couldn’t help but think it’s all such an amazing miracle! Yes I know the biologists and scientists can give us all sorts of explanations, but at the end of the day no one can explain just how it happens – the why of life at all.

I grew up on a farm and for a number of years worked in glasshouse horticulture, and later in landscape and garden maintenance. Working with nature has so many variables. We are dependent on what’s already in the system, not all seeds are the same, germinating conditions vary, etc. To produce a new breed of animal takes a lot of work with many failures, the same goes for producing new strains of plant life, some are successful, many are not.

Knowing the work that goes into the development of new breeds, or plant life, or for that matter ways of combating the various illnesses and diseases that afflict them, one can’t help but be staggered at the whole idea of life and how it works at all.

Life is a miracle – that it evolved for no rhyme or reason to what it is today, with no mind, power, or purpose behind it, doesn’t make any sense.

The Psalmist (19:1-4) spoke about the universe being a witness to the God who created it, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day by day they pour out speech and every night reveals knowledge… their voice goes out through all the earth…”

I wonder, have you heard it, have you got the message?

Paul said “In him (God) we live and move and have our being.” The fact I’m sitting here full of life is staggering, an amazing being with an amazing array of systems and functions, with a brain that far excels any computer. Wow!

Are you taking too much for granted, going to fast and missing the voice of God in the world about you?

Do you need to recover the wow factor?

Why don’t you stop and go for a walk in a garden or park…. take time to observe the world around you….. think about it, smell the fragrances… look at the stars, think about their courses… feel the wonder of your own heart beat and breath….think about the miracle of it all…

Let the thought lead to the wonder and the wow, and the wow and the wonder lead to worship - without the wonder there is no worship.

“O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the works Thy hands have made…. then sings my soul my Saviour God to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art!… When through the woods and forest glades I wander, and hear the birds singing sweetly in the trees….. then sings my soul my Saviour God to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art!”

Life is a miracle, the world, yours and everyone else’s, take time to thank and praise God for it before you move on, and keep doing so when you do.

God is for Us!

God is for us!

Staggering thought isn’t it? But know this the devil absolutely hates it, and is always seeking to undermine the truth, knowledge and experience of it – he comes to rob, kill and destroy.

In some circles you’d think God was against the world he created, but that is not the way the Bible portrays it.

From the beginning we find that God was still seeking out Adam and Eve for fellowship in the garden even though they had messed up. How many preacher’s have thundered ‘where are you?’ as if God were really angry with them, when in actual fact it was a loving appeal ‘Where are you? Why aren’t you here? What’s happened that you don’t want to come near?’

It was their sin that kept them away, the devil had lied, fooled them, and something had happened deep within, something that now caused them to hide from their loving Creator. Yes from there on in there is a deep alienation that causes them to know shame and pain – the consequences were unimaginable, having repercussions not only on them but every succeeding generation. Nevertheless as we journey through the story we find God on a mission, a mission to save, heal and restore humanity to that wonderful circle of Trinitarian fellowship for which they had originally been created.

The story wends it’s way through some amazing and frequently flawed characters, Noah, Abraham, a family, Moses, Joshua, a nation, as God pursues his dream, and the enemy though he constantly tries to undermine it through the character flaws and weaknesses of fallen humanity will not succeed.

Everything would ultimately lead to God himself taking on flesh in the coming of Jesus, weak, frail flesh – it’s impossible for us to dwell with God as we are, but not impossible for God to come and dwell with us.

John says the Word – Jesus, became flesh and dwelt among us. He lived in this stuff, real stuff. He lived a life in communion with the Father in the Spirit as we were intended to do. He went out and proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom (reign and presence) of God, and notably in the Sermon on the Mount he opened wide the door of the Kingdom of God to the spiritually bankrupt, downtrodden, rejected, etc. and invited them in – all of them, much to the horror of the religious leaders of the day! He even ate and drank with them; even forgave people their sins. He healed the sick, delivered the bound, taught them all.

In everything he demonstrates God’s great heart for those whom he gives life to – an act of grace in itself; and ultimately as Paul the apostle says, God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners – self-willed rebels, misaligned, twisted, broken, no-hopers – Christ died for us.

Yes God is for us, and all along he has been intent on restoring what was lost.

This God being for us involves more than saving us and getting us to heaven when we die, but knowing his presence and power in our daily lives, in such a way as to save, heal, deliver, restore, guide, provide, reconcile, renew, etc..

This is not about religion, smells and bells, meetings, etc.. This is about the dynamic of this Tri-personal God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, sharing ‘themselves’ with us without reservation. To that end the incarnation and the cross were absolutely necessary.

And now…. Now the Holy Spirit sheds his love abundantly in our hearts, the same love the Father has for the Son and the Spirit, the same love the Son has for the Father and the Spirit, the same love the Spirit has for the Father and Son, a love that gave us life in the first place and is declared and demonstrated to us in Jesus, and now through believing in Him is poured into our lives by the Spirit, a love more abundant than we could ever imagine, because God is 100% for us, for you, in Jesus! And that will never change!

Do you believe it? Do you know it?

Guilty fears? Lack of Assurance?

Guilty fears? Lack of assurance? Is the enemy trying to keep you away from coming into the Father’s presence by suggesting you are not good enough?

Following on from last week here’s another grand old hymn that expresses something of the cross work of Christ, and so edifies and encourages us.

It was written by Charles Wesley, brother of John the father of Methodism, and in it the writer encourages us to rise up and shake off those guilty fears, and everything that would keep us away from our Father by looking away from ourselves and ‘unto Jesus’ who is ‘the Author and Finisher of our faith.’

Arise, my soul, arise; shake off your guilty fears;
The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears:
Before the throne my surety stands,
Before the throne my surety stands,
My name is written on His hands.

He ever lives above, for me to intercede;
His all redeeming love, His precious blood, to plead:
His blood atoned for all our race,
His blood atoned for all our race,
And sprinkles now the throne of grace.

Five bleeding wounds He bears; received on Calvary;
They pour effectual prayers; they strongly plead for me:
“Forgive him, O forgive,” they cry,
“Forgive him, O forgive,” they cry,
“Nor let that ransomed sinner die!”

The Father hears Him pray, His dear anointed One;
He cannot turn away, the presence of His Son;
His Spirit answers to the blood,
His Spirit answers to the blood,
And tells me I am born of God.

My God is reconciled; His pardoning voice I hear;
He owns me for His child; I can no longer fear:
With confidence I now draw nigh,
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And “Father, Abba, Father,” cry.

Charles Wesley (lightly edited)

Some powerful words indeed, but we have an enemy who doesn’t like these truths, let alone us living in and enjoying them! Paul says to us via the Christians in Galatia ‘let the word of Christ dwell in you richly by teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing …. hymns…’ and via the church in Ephesus ‘be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in…hymns.’

Truth is powerful. Sung truth dynamically powerful. Though it the word impacts our minds, hearts/emotions and energies.

You believe in Jesus? You can’t be more loved or more reconciled than the day you believed! Don’t let the enemy keep you away, enter with all boldness and enjoy his loving presence.

You don’t know him? Let me tell you he loves you – that’s why Jesus came and lived and died. There’s nothing that you need to do except realise your need of him; that Jesus died for you and the price is paid, and therefore all you need to do is run into his loving forgiving arms.

If you’ve never heard the hymn, here’s a version I found on Youtube – not sure where it comes from…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzhVyNLBveU

No need to Pay Twice!

Following on from Easter and the death and resurrection of Jesus this old hymn came to mind, and what a hymn it is – I’ve lightly modernised it – it contains a powerful declaration of the glorious liberating truth of the cross.

If you are doubting, lacking assurance, wondering whether you’ve done enough, or whether Jesus has done enough, then….

From where this fear and unbelief?
Has not the Father put to grief
His spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous Judge of men
Condemn me for that debt of sin
Which, Lord, was charged on Thee?

Complete atonement You have made,
And to the utmost penny paid
All that Your people owed;
How then can wrath on me take place
If sheltered in Your righteousness,
And sprinkled with Your blood?

If You have my release obtained,
And freely in my place endured
The whole of wrath divine,
Payment God cannot twice demand—
First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.

Turn then, my soul, unto your rest!
The merits of your great High Priest
Have bought your liberty;
Trust in His most effective blood,
Nor fear your banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for you!

Augustus Toplady adapted by Richard Burgess

In the words of Paul – there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ (Romans 8:1)!

Hallelujah!

The Cross Has Said It All

In a world that likes to exalt man and speak of his advances and goodness, the cross doesn’t make sense.

In a world that likes to say we are all victims but no one’s guilty, the cross is a foreign and alien concept.

For many it belongs to a bygone era when humanity didn’t understand itself and needed the idea of a God and religion to help it on it’s way, but today we supposedly know better, we’ve advanced beyond these things.

Not only are there those in the world who struggle to understand the message of the cross,  there are those in the church too.

The idea of penal substitution (that Christ was crucified for our sins, in our place, bearing ourpunishment) is sadly falling out of favour. At one time it would have been liberals, but now some evangelicals are raising their doubts more it would seem from an emotional point of view than a scriptural one.

It troubles our personal sensitivities that someone should have to die for us, and in such an awful way, and as a result it’s becoming increasingly popular to speak in terms of ‘identification with our suffering and pain,’ a ‘moral influence upon us,’ or/and a ‘victory over sin and satan’ – a death you’ll note that has no reference to God.

The pride of man likes the idea that he’s pretty good and can pull himself up by his own efforts, that he can improve on his situation, each of which the aforementioned offer. But the Bible just wont have it – all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and totally unable to save himself or herself.

Memory Loss

The problem is we have memory loss. We have forgotten how grievous our sin is, we have forgotten how far we have fallen and it’s consequences and power in and over our lives, and how it separates us from God. Sin has caused a huge rupture in humanities relationship to God and completely messed up his own psyche, and it’s evidence is seen all over the place no matter the amount of education or social welfare etc..

An identification with our suffering and pain though comforting is insufficient, a moral influence is good but completely inadequate to get me, you, out of this mess, and a victory over sin and satan is great but how will that moment in history help me if that is all that there is to it? I need a cross that speaks a bigger and stronger word than that, a cross that radically goes to the root of the problem and gets me out of it.

The Cross Speaks

The cross speaks of God coming and taking human flesh not simply to identify with us, or provide us with a good example, or tell us that sin and satan have been defeated, but of God’s great power to go to the heart of the issue and provide a substitute who would take our very sin and bear the judgement of a Triune God on it.

I put it that way deliberately – it was a Trinitarian affair, it was the business of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – not one over and against an unwilling other. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. This plan had it’s origin in the heart of the Trinity, a truly staggering plan in which the ‘chastisement or punishment of our peace was upon him’ as Isaiah says prophetically by the Spirit.

As Paul says, ‘Christ died for our sins.’

A cross that is not penal carries no great salvific message, it simply gives me a form of moralism – I nearly wrote a moralistic gospel, but such would not be good news!

Isaiah says:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed himstricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soulmakes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” (Isaiah 53:4-6, 10)

The cross has to do with God and man.

He bore and was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

He bore our chastisement/punishment.

He was wounded for our healing.

He paid the price for all our sin.

He was stricken, smitten by God – it was God who put God in flesh to grief.

It was God in Flesh who made an offering for all our guilt.#

The Cross has Said it All

The cross has said it all. It is a full word, complete and sufficient in every way.

This truly is a saving gospel. It is this gospel that has been the good news to many a soul down through history, thousands upon thousands, indeed millions of them. Yes, as this gospel is preached he shall continue to see his offspring (those who believe) and be satisfied!