I was reading not long ago of Thomas Merton’s thoughts as he watched an animal emerging out of hibernation. Merton thought the animal was emerging too early, that warmer weather had not truly come; indeed there was snow on the ground and snow falling. It turns out that the animal was right and Thomas Merton was wrong. Despite what Merton was truly observing, he drew a wrong conclusion about the seasons by observation alone. The animal going by something other than simple observation knew the times and the seasons.

Jesus seemed to know when spiritual seasons were changing. He looked at Jerusalem one day and realised mid-sentence a season had changed: “Would that today you knew the things that make for peace… BUT NOW, they are hid from you.”

If we are born again then we have a Kingdom of God awareness within us, for the Kingdom does not come by observation of outward natural signs, it is within. I am not sure how much teaching there is in the Christian Church to help people read Kingdom awareness within them. At times that Kingdom awareness will completely agree with what can be deduced by a non Christian trusting what their senses are observing. At times however, the witness of the Kingdom within will lead to thinking and action that differs from what a non born-again person without the Kingdom within them could know or choose to do according to their “light.” That does not mean we should despise observation and reason and logic. These are part of our God created humanness, and we should thank God for such things and make sure we are not so “spiritual” that we despise them. However at times the Kingdom within us which is not of this world will indeed tell us to do something  or give us an outlook that makes no logical sense whatsoever to someone not born of God.  Remember the cross is foolishness to the world, but to those who believe, well, we have received the revelation that it is the wisdom and the power of God. Flesh and blood did not reveal that to us. Without being born of God we cannot see the Kingdom, it is as simple as that. As God’s children, born from above of His Spirit, we should indeed “Trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding.” We need to remember that “There is a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is death.”

We need to listen for the witness of God’s peace concerning any conclusions or decisions. In saying all this, please remember that when God asks us to do something that defies common sense and we are sure He is in it, that is one thing; to take a step off a cliff when God has not commanded us to do so, is quite a different matter….I think I want to pray for all of you who read this that you will know the difference, and save yourself from the torment of confusion and the taunting of the devil or our fellow believers who say “Where is your faith?” At times Jesus can say that to us, but remember the devil effectively said the same to Jesus; “Just jump, you know it says you will be rescued from harm.” “Oh God may we know the difference between Satan’s taunts and the challenge of our Saviour.”

I hate to say it, but much of the “challenge to greater faith” exhortations in those Charismatic circles which go beyond the bible as compared to Charismatic  circles where the bible is fully and faithfully honoured in its witness to the activity of the Spirit,  are actually “jump of the cliff ” taunts of Satan. Our Heavenly Father does not make a habit of goading His children and mocking their lack of compliance. I remember the ineffectiveness and the unsettling effect  of teachers at school who seemed to depend a lot on goading, cynicism or mockery in relating to those they were seeking to teach. Don’t feel pressured to oblige any preacher or teacher, when they seem to be exhorting you to do something against the peace of God within you. Don’t feel bad when you don’t blindly follow the blind (even if well-meaning and enthusiastic sounding)  guides, as though your faith has failed and you have been a coward. It probably hasn’t and you probably are not! Rather, God has perhaps saved you from presumption and the disaster it can lead to. He wants you to be a redeemed “you” not an obliging clone of a preacher or “teacher” who is frustrated with those they are exhorting or seeking to educate. Let God help them to face their own issues; complying  meekly with their every demand may stop that preacher or teacher from facing up to where they themselves need healing or even repentance… needs some preachers eventually face up to, to the relief and blessing of their congregation….but sadly, some never do and continue to weary and to blame the flock….

… back on the main track now! To be honest I distrust both terribly sensible Christians on the one hand and on the other hand, those who seem to continually challenge common sense as though it was a bad and untrustworthy thing. It is trustworthy, though not always or finally.

I started with Thomas Merton – not the most often advised reading by evangelicals or charismatics, I know, and even to a genuine certain extent understand: I want  to end with another of his thoughts. He says somewhere or other that our mission is “to feel the Spring.” In the context of today’s blog at least, I sort of like that. The Kingdom within knows that in the overall sense, the Kingdom season has been the same since Christ cried, “Finished” and “death could not hold its prey.” On one level the Kingdom within tells us it is always deeply, eternally, unshakeably  advancing Spring which winter can never challenge again…though of course there is  day and night, sun and rain, there are bright days and dark days, warmth and colder times,  even in Spring…

God Bless

Kenny

P.S. – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

I was so blessed the other day through talking with a man I had never met before. Somehow my attention was drawn to him as he drank his coffee. I sat near him and began speaking to him as I drank my coffee. The conversation seemed to be surprisingly easy. Within less than two minutes he shared with me that he had mental health issues. Within five minutes he shared that these issues had got much worse when his mother passed away. Within two minutes more he told me he had seen a banner outside his local church inviting him in, so he had gone in. He found Christ. I am remembering as I write some of the phrases he used: “I am a changed person…My life is completely different from what it was… I have been born again, yes, that is what happened to me. I can hold my head up high walking down the street now…”

The simplicity of it all refreshed me… a banner outside a church that spoke of a welcome… finding Christ…life changed! We seem to be living in an age when the church itself is full of self doubt about its effectiveness, an age in which there is a mantra of cynicism about traditional ways and approaches to mission which we have to repeat (often to the hurt of those who found life in the things we mock and still do). Yet here was a man who saw a banner outside his local parish church, went in and was welcomed, entered the Kingdom of God and received eternal life which has begun now in him and will never end. Furthermore life is spreading through him. His granddaughter is now really excited to come along to church with him; he tells her to remember every day that Jesus loves her; in fact I heard 11 children are now going to that same church; not so long ago there were no children attending.

His testimony and hearing about his church fellowship refreshed me. I thought I was sitting down next to him to help him in some way, but I was the one who was blessed. I thank God for humble churches up and down the land in all sorts of places who faithfully bear witness in what might be looked upon as old fashioned ways, in whose vocabulary whom the word “missional” does not appear. They might not be thought to be at the cutting edge, they may even be mocked by those of us who have tasted and swallowed the devil’s delicious morsel  that  we are the people who are at the cutting edge (whatever that means!) The demise of local churches has been predicted since I sat in a church as a child before I was converted, but they are still there, opening their doors, putting up banners that offer welcome and help, doing good and caring in simple non dramatic ways.

I remember when the Toronto Blessing broke out in our congregation, St. Peter’s and St. Andrews in Thurso. In the congregation that night was a minister who summoned me to stand before his desk in great concern the next day as though I was a naughty schoolboy being called before a headmaster! He announced to me that having been in the service last night with his wife, they had agreed together on the way home that the Holy Spirit had left St. Peter’s and St. Andrews! Well, I believe that God alone saves. In that meeting that night God saved someone. He also delivered someone and met a horrendously abused person with consoling love, and began to deliver someone from involvement in the occult who had never been in the church before.

Tonight I praise God for the churches in Scotland, whatever their shape, size, type, worship style where God is still doing what only God can do; bringing people to a place where they know they are new creations in Christ Jesus. Let’s not be so quick to announce with authority, “God has left the building…Ichabod.” (See 1 Samuel 4:21.) Remember too when wood that is dried out catches fire, it burns really well! In faith and in the fear of God who listens and notes how we speak about our brothers and sisters in Christ, instead of being frustrated by dry wood and throwing it on the junk heap as useless and unfit for purpose, is it time to pray for it; perhaps even to pray for a particular church? God is sovereign. When the fire of true revival falls it usually causes offence because it begins in a place that many Christians would pronounce dry or dead. It often begins in out of the way places that makes many people scratch their heads and ask, “Why on earth did revival begin there? If I was God, I would have poured out the Spirit on…” Is there a church near you that you have dismissed as dead?

God bless you… and your congregation….and the church down the road over which you, not God, have said, presumed or thought, “Ichabod.”

Kenny

P.S. – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

I don’t fully understand the operation of the gift of “discernment of spirits.” I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit in the early 80’s which resulted in that gift being given without being asked for. It has remained ever since. One thing I know is that its operation depends on me being not childish, but child-like and willing to be taught by the Spirit. So so often, sadly, we bring what we have previously learned to bear upon a current situation and interpret what is going on according to our knowledge up until that point in time. When we do that, we are likely to draw conclusions more from what we know than from what The Spirit of God within us wants to help us see, hear, or understand in that precise moment and circumstance. Knowledge puffs up and can make me seem an expert; the love of God builds up by revealing true insight which only God can give by the immediate witness of His Spirit.

I have made the above mistake pastorally on occasion. I have brought what I know about a roughly similar situation to bear upon a fresh situation, rather than observing and listening afresh. Of course there is nothing wrong with using knowledge and what God has helped us to learn in the past, but when it stops us listening and being fully aware in the present we may miss what actually “is.” When people looked at Jesus with what they “knew” in the gospels, they missed what was actually there. The centurion did not have the Scriptural knowledge of the Jews, or the Jewish leadership, but he saw what was actually there: that this man Jesus truly was the Son of God, or as a pagan might say before knowledge is added to revelation, this man was a son of the gods.

I am honestly not sure if a gift can be imparted by a blog, nor am I fully convinced of the fact that gifts can be learned without being given by God. In fact though I believe in impartation, the proof it has happened is that it has happened, not that we have attended a conference and been told something has been imparted, despite there being no evidence of it. At times I know I have imparted this gift to others,at other times I have not, which has been an embarrassing not always private experience leading to the good fruit of humility. I have to say though, that the gift of discernment of spirits is not one I come across often in the body of Christ, and yet I am convinced it is a gift that God has poured out upon His Church. I wonder if that gift is waiting to spring into action within you? Perhaps the gift is lying there, unopened….

Here is my suggestion. Thank God for all he has taught you about spiritual life and truth as it is found in Christ. Don’t forget it. However from that basis, be prepared to meet the God who creates out of nothing. There is an emptying of our minds that is dangerous and wrong and is almost an invitation to any spirit around to flood in to the vacuum we create; this is the great danger of some forms of Eastern Mysticism. However, there is a Christian equivalent: remember the occult is a counterfeit of the true. So, pray to the Father, through the Son; tell Him you want to be taught of God; Lift the situation or circumstance you are in, or the person you are speaking with or about to speak with to Him, and offer Him your spirit, soul and body to hear, see and receive what God wants you to see, hear or know.

I guess this is Course 101 type of advice… maybe I will give you some more sometime…it may help me myself to think things through further…

God Bless

Kenny

P.S. – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

From time to time I get a sense that I have to give a prophetic word rather than a teaching word. That feeling has been hanging around me most of the day, so here goes…

I feel the Lord may want to say this to some of you who read this blog:

“Don’t rush to that person to say what is on your mind and get something off your chest. If you do, you may feel better, even happier, but receive this warning: the relationship will be destroyed and there are no guarantees it will recover. The truthfulness of what you may feel you have to say is not sufficient reason to go ahead and say it.”

If this speaks into your situation today, please heed it. The sad thing is though that I think the Lord warned me that some for whom this word may be for will feel the potential glee of going ahead and saying whatever you feel you want to say… and you will do. There are few things more certain to cause shipwreck in spiritual life than an unteachable spirit which at times rears forward like a horse longing to run, or at times is as stubborn as a mule. In further humble effort to help you hear the Word of the Lord, I would ask you to think of the words of Psalm 32:9;

“Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.”

God Bless

Kenny

A friend on Facebook posted a few quotes from Winston Churchill, including this one: “You will never reach your destination if you stop to throw stones at every dog that barks.” Great quote! Who or what do you not need to respond to today? What anger or madness or insult or distraction coming from another person or situation should you refuse to dignify by attention or conversation? Satan may have  dangled some bait before you today or may do so soon. Don’t bite the bait! By the way if you are a leader, choose what you go to the stake over. The book of Nehemiah reminds us not to get distracted from what God is asking us to build at any given moment… don’t fight needless battles…

God bless

Kenny

P.S. – You are very welcome to enjoy these blogs and share them with anyone “without money or price!” However, if you ever feel grateful for these blogs and are able to do so, then please make a donation to Open Doors, Scotland. Their website is

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

In case you have not heard of them, Open Doors works to help our persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Well, we have now moved house…Morag has been through surgery….Christmas and new Year are past…and only now do I find I have the energy to get back to blogging. Things take longer and take more out of me and to get over with my breathing problems than at times I realise or make allowance for. The thing is, that is actually ok…so why  do I feel it is not? I guess the “Accuser of the brethren” and of the sisters too,  is as deadly alive and as unwell as ever.

So early on in 2017, but later than I had hoped, I want to ask you a question: What voices do you need to stop listening to, once and for all, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who died and was raised once and for all? I realise now that some of the pastoral advice I have given in the past was based on feeling well rather than upon the Wisdom and Word of God. It came from my experience of  a very happy, stable, loving and encouraging background and of good health, physically, spiritually and mentally: it did not always come from the heart or mind of God towards some person or situation, though it was well meant. For example: I have generally told people to hold their ground in situations that are spiritually discouraging. I think I picked up in the past that was the only right thing to do. It was almost an evangelical law: and you know what? Surrounded by encouragement and in possession of good health and support, it is within reach to do that. The trouble is that not everyone is blessed with such realities. Remember, in this New Year,  that Your Father in Heaven cares about you: He cares about the welfare of those who live above all things for Him and who serve Him. I am not wanting to direct you towards a change or a transition, but a “chance” encounter with someone I met yesterday makes me feel that perhaps there are a few valiant  but tired souls who need to be given permission to move….to move out of a difficult  relational, work or church situation. Not directing… but just giving you permission to rethink some religious but not necessarily biblical laws and rules about the right thing to do….

Thing is… I am sure  I was meant to learn this years ago…. perhaps if I had  I might not be in the state  I am in now and might have been more help to some people who I have not been able to help very much… ? Don’t know….Lord have mercy…. So, partly from personal experience, partly from knowing God in Christ better than I once did, please consider what I am saying to you in the love and the Name of Christ….It may preserve your life and health, your joy and wellbeing, your days on earth, your days with your loved ones and least important of all, prolong your days of active ministry….

God bless

Kenny

P.S: thanks for all Facebook Messages over the Festive Season from many who love us faithfully; please don’t take lack of response as lack of appreciation; it  is genuinely an energy issue in a way that I don’t fully understand and have still to fully accept. Some days the slightest extra thing seems beyond reach. Will get back to you a.s.a.p. which may mean a wee while yet!  Much love, dear friends. Kenny