I believe something that I heard John Paul Jackson say at a conference, “CLAN Gathering,” in Scotland. “God is who He has always been and is doing what He has always done.” For some curious reason many believe He no longer does what He did in the days of the bible. Well, if He has changed, He cannot be God, for either He was by definition perfect before He changed in which case He is no longer God, or He was perfect after He changed in which case He was not God in the first place. From everlasting to everlasting, God is God. He is who He has always been and does what He has always done. He would remind us all “I am the Lord. I do not change.”

So I want to tell you a fact that my mind from a Presbyterian background disapproves of but my born again spirit rejoices in! God has spoken to you in your dreams. It is one of the ways He chooses to speak and, remember, He is God so He can do whatever He chooses and does not need our counsel and advice as to how He should do things. If He is the God of the Old and New Testament, then more than likely He has spoken to you in dreams but you may have discounted that as a possibility and so not have recognised Him speaking to you a word to live by. I hope that from now on you may be alert to His presence and truth as you sleep. Indeed, pray that your Heavenly Father who never slumbers or sleeps but keeps watch as you sleep with unutterable and unalterable love will begin to speak to you as He chooses in your dreams. Pray too that the precious gift of sleep from a Father to His beloved children will not be invaded by the enemy, unless of course God allows you to see something about how the enemy has been attacking your life and exposes his tactics so that you can have the victory of Christ over him. Yes, I do believe not only in dreams but in the devil and his demons. I have seen them leave people, including me. Yes, I believe a born again Christian can be demonically troubled.,, but more of that another time… perhaps… but it is quite boring really and not nearly as exciting as talking about God. Never give the devil more attention than he merits.

From time to time in this blog I will tell you how God has spoken to me in my dreams.
Here is the dream I want t tell you about tonight. I was fighting my way through a forrest. It was heavy going, and my armour had taken a few strikes. Yet, i was struggling on. It was only when I came to a clearing and stopped hacking away that I realised how tired I was. I sensed an invitation to step into this clearing. At the same time there was a sense of fear. The fear came from the emptiness of the space I was being invited into. I feared that emptiness. I feared the clearness of the space. There was nowhere to hide, which begs the question as to what I felt I needed to hide from. This is a good question to ask I think. What exactly is it that I fear about stepping out of laboriously hacking my way through the woods into a clear space? Who is the enemy that I fear will see me and attack me? Perhaps the enemy is myself? Yet, I longed to step into that clear space as the sense of invitation increased and did so because all of a sudden I saw one feature in that clearing. It was Christ. How do I know? Well, you just know that you know. I saw Him as a victorious warrior sitting astride a huge stone. This was the risen Jesus, the conqueror of sin and death and hell who had driven out the prince of this world. With a speed and a confidence that seemed against my personality, against the Kenny that everybody sees and knows, I made my way boldly towards Him, but as I did I was aware this was a precious moment that could be stolen. A prayer formed in my dream, which as I recollect went something like this, or at least this was the felt tone of my prayer within the dream: “Jesus, I lack the wisdom to be the Gatekeeper. Be my Gatekeeper in the Power of the Spirit. Let me know when something is trying to enter the clearing without passing the gate which you are watching, a gate open to all your followers. Warn me by your presence, calm me by your presence, be the kindness, the tenderness that destroys all harsh judgment or treatment that would rush upon me from others, from my own fears, yes from me, my own worst enemy. Amen!”

So, I came to Christ the King. I will tell the rest in the first person, as I am writing about me not someone else: “It is Christ the King, calling me as one of His Knights to stand, not to kneel, but to stand before Him that He and I may look at one another face to face. It is a place of calm counsel where established righteousness fills the air with rest. He sits on top of the rolled away boulder, and from that place of accomplished victory, He is looking at this knight not for defeat but to honour valour. The sense is that the clearing is full of “eternal splendours,” saved, redeemed human beings of all types sizes and shapes, and yet this face to face meeting is entirely that; One to one. I think it has been the same experience for these other eternal splendours too, my redeemed brothers and sisters. Around that boulder there is no weakness, no darkness at all, nothing but the light of victory and of righteousness. Around that boulder there is an awareness of an eternal truth that in Christ weakness is turned to strength. In His presence all that there is awareness of is strength. Weakness is automatically transformed into that as it approaches Him. Weakness can only be seen with the eye of faith not the eye of sight in this clearing. All is calm, strong, vibrant, eternal life, yet soft and fragrant. Victory has no need to fear or flex its muscles to convince itself or others it is victory. In this place the weak do indeed say they are strong, the poor say they are rich, the blind say I can see… One step into the King’s Clearing and what is weak is strengthened, what is in danger of being put out of joint becomes worthy of being trusted with weight and movement once again.”

I am convinced that with one hand Jesus holds the sword of a victory won, but with the other he is beckoning you, whoever you are reading this, into “The Clearing” where the King honours His Knights, a place fragrant with love. True love looks for the best and seeks to show it to the other who may be blind to it. Christ wants us to see what He sees as He looks at us. He wants us to see what He most regards. He does not give His best attention to our sin and our failure. He has done that on the cross. Sin is not the object of his fascination or attention. Perish the thought. He has died a death to the realm of sin forever. It no longer is the focus of His attention though such a great salvation will be the focus of our attention and fuel our worship for eternity. Christ the Captain has moved the front line. His attention now is to where it fast-forwarded to in His High Priestly Prayer in John 17, namely His battling people. He regards our valour and our strength and our victories as well as being touched with our infirmities through experiencing the battle to be truly human from the inside. He is present as the one who says in the midst of battle, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. ” This is what He wants to speak to us about, face to face; our winning the fight. There is almost a sense in which to speak too much of our failures and defeats would be to waste the time. The question is how to take the victory forward. He has such a confidence His knights, and by that I mean knights both male and female, can do that, so much so that He has no back up plan other than them/us. This is gracious love for ourselves and one another: To believe for God’s best in and for a person can come to be.

I think in a way that I do not remember being as obvious for a long time, the Church is awakening to its task of mission and service in the world, and that is wonderful. But please, never forget time in The King’s clearing, where Jesus offers the best portion: Himself. Generous hospitality is part of the creation story. Everything was good, so so good. It was good in itself. Creation without man was good. But it was also a good setting for Adam and Eve. Freely every tree of the garden bar one was offered. “Come and taste the goodness of God.” It is hardly surprising therefore that when the Maker comes as Redeemer the tone of all He is and does and offers is so incredibly generous. He offers Himself as the bread which came down from heaven to give life to the world. He is always the generous host. Everything about the dream says to me what I am now saying to you in the name of the King: “Come! Come without money and price”

Sleep and dream well.