Use an elastic band too often and it loses all power to pull inwards again. The principle of “Constrained Difference” which can effectively be read as “Constrained departure from the text of Scripture” which the Theological Forum has tried successfully to get the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to embrace and caress over recent years is subject to the same problem. Already there are signs it has lost its promised “constraint” element. I wonder when it will be wheeled out next as a powerless thing into which any disobedience and heresy can step and stay with ease with no grip of truth or revelation around its thieving feet?

It’s the same with “cultural context.” That valid tool and line of enquiry has lost all its elasticity. In fact, I think certainly in the hands of some, it has been broken. It has been stretched to embrace territory which is not its domain at all. Already “Atonement” is subject to its misuse. I guess the Resurrection will be too soon enough. “Well of course back in the culture of the time….” A valid tool has been usurped. What could and can bring light and illumination is now misused without limit to skirt round any bible verse that offends modern sensitivities. Texts are becoming meaningless in terms of having any unalterable fact content in the hands of some theologians and preachers. We are heading for days when bar a sheer undeserved mercy of God Sovereign and Holy Spirit Revival, Jesus, the Son of the Father, will be referred to by many within the Church as something like “The Universal Child of the Force,” for anything else that the Church has held dear and held faithfully to for years will be considered culturally conditioned. “Father” and “Kingdom” are now suspect phrases that some ministers no longer use. It has astonished me over the last ten years how the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is no longer pronounced at the end of a service or church meeting of one sort or another.

BUT GOD…. when you or I were dead in sin, unable to do anything about it, He saved us because of his rich mercy. He can do that on whatever scale he chooses. He is the Lord. And just to end on a politically incorrect note: The God of the bible, the ony true God there is, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has an ability to laugh. According to Psalm 2, He holds in derision those who seek to cast off every restraint which is the true spirit behind “constrained difference/departure.” Adam and Eve’s constrained difference with God’s Word had a deeper, reasonable sounding but evil source beyond themselves. Sometimes we know we have yielded to a lie, often we don’t. Well intentioned and constrained departure from God’s Word is a bad idea whatever.

I am writing these bold thoughts from my bed as health is not good this morning despite being much better the last couple of days. Hopefully the day will improve for me health wise. These thoughts are easy for me to type as I do not now have the task of consoling a post Assembly dismayed congregation or encouraging it to stay true to the Christ and His Gospel, His Word and His Mission. Many of my friends and colleagues are faced with precisely that task. God bless every dismayed C of S pastor and congregation, saddened perhaps once more to the point of tears, with the life giving and refreshing Word and Spirit of Christ this Sunday. There is never a reason to ever stop praising Him, trusting Him, proclaiming Him, serving Him, loving Him. May His Lordship and Friendship and Favour be with you. In a denomination that you may feel has frozen out your voice, may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ bless and keep you, make His face to shine upon you; lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

God Bless

Kenny

From Matthew Chapter 13:

31Here is another illustration Jesus used: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. 32It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches.”

I have found this a helpful parable to think about lately, especially when health, or rather its limitations,  means I am not as active as I would like to be.

In a Church, that thankfully has awakened to its call to mission in familiar or fresh expressions,  there is something here  in this parable to help those who cannot respond in the manner they are challenged to  by younger/enthusiastic/healthy leaders, due to ill health, lack of energy etc: don’t feel guilty or pressurised to do what your body or mind has not got the strength to do; just be in Christ, and somehow you become a tree in which/whom others will find  a welcoming space and refuge.

In the renewed emphasis on “going” there is still a place for being a welcoming shade from the heat of the day or the dangers and terrors of the night. There are still precious people seeking a place where they can have space to fold their wings and rest in order that they might learn to spread their wings and fly, or fly again.

“Sheep come where there is grass,” is something I head the Lord say to me in a comforting and gentle way when I was driving the other day. I got home and discovered sheep had been released into a field behind our house…

So to all you strongly rooted trees, who at times wish you could move more freely, listen and receive this:  your rootedness will bless others. May the birds come to you. May sheep safely graze near to you…..

God Bless

Kenny

Was thinking about the C of S General Assembly. Came up with a number of witty “smart” “smarmy” things I could say as an evangelical. However “smart” on its own rarely is the guidance of God’s Spirit. Once I had got all that “flesh” out of my thinking, a memory came of The Very Revd. Leonard Small speaking at the Assembly. Bible verses quoted from the floor of the Assembly usually produce a murmuring shuffling discontent, which of course is hugely worrying, but on this occasion the quoting of this Scripture received a standing ovation: “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” I think the commitment to preach good news to the poor still counts for a lot in the eyes of God. I know it is not a question of bartering verses or priorities in that we are to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord, but I could not help but think commitment to ministry in the poorest parishes means a lot. Whether it is the best form of ministry is another question up for debate – somewhere else not here, so comments that want to spark of a debate will be censored, unashamedly. Post your own thoughts somewhere else.

I think it matters a lot in the eyes of God in Christ that ministry in the poorest parishes is obviously a priority in any denomination or non-denomination, to be reflected in the prioritising of resources. Without that positive discrimination I know that Gospel Ministry would have suffered, for example, in Wester Hailes. Thankful for this commitment. Thankful for every ministry of faithfulness to the Gospel, but positively discriminating my thankfulness towards those who serve alongside the poorest communities, and those who enable them to do so.

God Bess

Kenny

God has more to do than just hanging around waiting to forgive me or you my brother/sister in Christ. Grace means more than that. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is a God of purpose who calls us to actively pursue His Will. Grace is not divine indulgence of our propensity to sin. It means that at great cost we are offered an opportunity that our sin means we could never buy for ourselves: a fresh opportunity to live our lives to God’s glory by fulfilling His Kingdom will and purpose in time and eternity.

Grace means that in the the white hot mercy of God at Calvary, we are offered more than mercy, more than forgiveness, eternally precious though that is. We are given the chance that justice alone would deny us, the chance to stop being usurpers of the throne of God over our lives and over all things. Grace awakens us to this above all; that we have not acknowledged God as God nor given Him His glory; not believed in or acknowledged the Lordship of Christ, the Son of God, over us.

Listening to an at moments wonderful Worship CD today, it struck me I would never have worked that out from what I was listening to. If I was a non believer I would have thought the eternal God’s purpose in existing was to make me feel loved and cosy and secure again when I sin, full stop. I would have been left thinking I could live as I wanted and chose and all would be well. Indeed, I am beginning to think that “There is nothing I could do that could ever make God love me more and there is nothing I could do that could ever make God love me less,” is being sung about, preached about, understood and lived out in an erroneous way that (hopefully) was never meant when that truth came into vogue in that pithy form to a fresh degree about 15 or 20 years ago.

If grace does not lead to obedience (however slowly learned) and serving the purpose of God in our generation (reluctantly or gladly), it is not the true grace of God we are talking about, nor have we ever encountered the true grace of God that has appeared to us from heaven in Christ, a grace that trains us to renounce and turn from ungodliness. We seem to have slumped so far from the biblical meaning of key words in the Christian Faith. We have kept the words and concepts but altered the meaning… but then that seems to be in vogue within secular life, even at the level of government and law making.

Fake news, false reporting and altered meanings: well if it is good enough for the world….. after all is that not the way ahead: to show the non-Christian lost world that actually we are really just like them, we talk like them, dress like them, have the same life goals as them, the same ambitions, the same hopes for our children, listen to the same music as them, drink like them, go clubbing like them, spend our hard earned cash like them, holiday like them, support good causes like them, do good deeds that they approve of, swear like them, but we just happen to believe in Jesus too? So it would seem….

Revival according to one famous definition is “a new beginning of obedience” starting among God’s people. Takes the glow and the sentimentality out of that word, doesn’t it? It also reminds us that the sovereign purposes of God are intimately linked with the hearts and lives of His people in a way that I have never quite been able to fathom and yet firmly believe. ” Everything is known “to Him with whom we have to do.”

God Bless

Kenny

A Facebook Post from earlier this evening…

OK, I get nostalgic these days.. but in a thankful to God way. I was just remembering after I was converted that I would listen to ministers who preached the hell and heaven out of any verse they handled along with the clear meaning to boot! Such preaching saddened me. I felt betrayed in some sense. God had invaded my life unexpectedly, the Kingdom of God had drawn near to me. Simple clear bible teaching at an S.U. camp had given me the scent of a Saviour I sought and was found by. I knew there was a hell and I knew there was a heaven. I had been born from above to live a new and eternal life to the glory of the God in Christ. (I was reminded by a friend’s Facebook post the other day that as Tom Torrance said and taught, there is no God hiding behind Jesus! Profound and beautiful as anything he ever said…. and more understandable than a lot of what he said! Would that such clarity had remained into our generation)
What I heard from pulpits as I sought to grow in my faith in the earliest year or two was dull petty moralisms, usually based more on a story than on a biblical text, that no sensible person would ever disagree with and which we hardly, it seemed to me, needed Christ to come and tell us. If it was all about little do good moralisms, the Father made a dreadful mistake sending His Son to an agonising sin bearing death when all he needed to do was get people to nod their wise heads at a few obvious truths for living. It was such a life giving joy and relief to end up at St. George’s Tron and hear the preaching of the late Rev. George B Duncan. I often sat transfixed, not really wanting to move at the end of a service because the word was so full of eternal life. I felt I wanted to bask in its effective power. The same awareness of the power of the Word when it is preached for what it is, God-breathed, blessed me too under the ministry of G.B.D’s successor, Rev. Eric J Alexander…. so grateful for these and other influences….sad for those who were brought up on preaching with hell and heaven kicked out of it. “Sheep without a Shepherd “ comes to mind…..
An odd collection of folk seem to be my Facebook friends! It may be you are not yet a Christian but you would like to find out what it is all about. Well, why not find a church where the bible is explained rather than explained away? It doesn’t really matter the banner over the door. Test the fruit if you want to know there is something life giving planted there or not. Do these people believe and live out the bible simply and faithfully, or do they question it and live in denial of what it teaches, merely following the dictates of the culture around them? If you live in a country where that is not possible for you, then I hope you may have access on line to some good bible teaching. Be discerning though. The minute it seems obvious to you that the text is being explained away rather than explained, look elsewhere, as there will be no life transforming presence of Christ to be found there. R.T. Kendall would be a good place to start. If you need more suggestions PM me.

God bless.

Kenny

P.S.

Friend, there is a heaven to be received and a hell to be shunned. Jesus died for sinners like you and me. You don’t get into heaven by being good. You need a saviour. That is why Jesus came. To bear the punishment our sins deserved and to open the door into the unending Kingdom of God to all who will repent and believe in Him. The bible says, “God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but shall have eternal life.” Friend, “Repent and believe the gospel.” the Kingdom of heaven is not just future. Jesus has made it possible for you to become part of that Kingdom now. He came to tell us this good news: “The Kingdom of heaven is near.” He opened the door into that Kingdom for all by his sin-bearing death. Trust in Him and no condemnation awaits you. Follow Him as your Lord. Ask Him to bring the forgiveness which He died to make possible into your life and to give you the power of the Spirit to live a new life as a born again child of God!

Oh, I don’t know all who will read this, but I hope some actual friends  of which there are a few, who once walked with Jesus but don’t seem to be at the moment, may come back to the One who loves you and gave himself for you. Would you not rather have Jesus than silver or gold, than riches untold, than fame, than anything this world affords? I pray that a desire will be reawakened in you to follow Him. You know He is real. You once knew the reality of His love, His power, His truth, His Word, His Spirit  coursing through your veins with the joy of salvation. You once loved His people and blessed them abundantly. Remember when He broke in! Remember! It was an unexpected miracle, not expected by you or by anyone! WHAT HAPPENED? What wrong did Christ do you that He no longer has your first love? Don’t do it for me! Do it for Him! He is worthy of all your love, all your devotion. He had it once, or so it seemed. Might this be the last chance before your heart becomes too hard? God’s Spirit will not strive with us forever.

May he give you tears and words with which to come to Him, may there be a melting caused by tenderest most trustworthy love….

1

In tenderness He sought me,
Weary and sick with sin,
And on His shoulders brought me
Into His fold again.
While angels in His presence sang
Until the courts of heaven rang.
Oh, the love that sought me!
Oh, the blood that bought me!
Oh, the grace that brought me to the fold,
Wondrous grace that brought me to the fold!

2
He washed the bleeding sin-wounds,
And poured in oil and wine;
He whispered to assure me,
“I’ve found thee, thou art Mine:”
I never heard a sweeter voice,
It made my aching heart rejoice.

Oh, the love that sought me!
Oh, the blood that bought me!
Oh, the grace that brought me to the fold,
Wondrous grace that brought me to the fold!

Christ would ask someone who reads this:  “Art thou ashamed of me, the tender lover of your soul? Art thou ashamed to be counted with my people? There is a way back, beloved. The power of my blood goes as deep as the stain has gone and deeper still. You proved that once. Prove it once more! My shed  blood never loses its power!”

Ah well. some more suggested “constrained differences” or more accurately  constrained departures” from biblical views and practice being asked to be made allowable for those who so choose at this year’s General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

I guess there is nothing new under the sun. Adam and Eve agreed on a constrained difference with what God meant when He had said “No” to something very clearly, resulting inevitably in a “constrained departure” from God.  I mean, they didn’t take the decision to depart from the commandment to multiply and fill the earth. No constrained difference there! They didn’t stop gardening or subduing the earth. Their departure was “considered,” and restrained.  They didn’t go wild and jettison everything God had clearly said. They set the limits to their own departure. They were sure it was a step into “enlightenment” not at all a temptation to move towards darkness. “How ridiculous that this  could be the first step on a slippery slope for us or for our descendants!” (Mention “Slippery slope” in theological debates about “Constrained difference/approved departures” and you will quickly be made to look like and sound like a naive joke who deserves to be laughed at for a few seconds before the Moderator/Chair/ Presiding Bishop/ Professor  intervenes to call everyone back to respectful debate, “whatever position may be being voiced.”

The trouble is that not only is a constrained difference/departure not the basis of a blessed relationship with God, it actually spoils everything. Whatever “subduing” meant it was harder with thorns and thistles. The very birth process of human beings,  was affected too.

How arrogantly to politely solicit “a constrained departure” from the Word of God and think we can control the consequences of that to being “constrained” as well.  Says who? What we reap, we sow, and the laws of sowing and reaping mean that you get back 30 fold. 60 fold or a 100 fold what you sow. So the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Or perhaps the redefinition of grace that has happened in many Christian quarters no longer believes that principle is there in the New Testament, not just the Old. Restrained departure sown means in time reaping a whirlwind of practices and beliefs which the polite theologically minded pleaders are sure will never happen.

Oh it is easier a bit for me to sit on the side lines and lob grenades. I am no longer serving in a parish having to cope with the pain and potential disunity and destruction of congregational life that can sometimes follow on from decisions made at the Assemblies, General Synods, Union Meetings for whatever Union of Churches,  for some congregations and their leadership and ministers. However I still care for the parishes of this land. Despite every officially sanctioned constrained difference/departure, which at the moment seem to be susceptible to the tactic of delay for a year or two but not much else, I still hope and pray that  local parish churches and churches of every denomination, traditional setups and new ventures  might be led by folk whose prayer is that God would honour His Word and His Son. I pray for every ministry which realises that God’s glory is besmirched in Scotland, His Word mocked, His Son’s cross spat upon by much that goes under the name of “Church” and  under the banner of being in some way “Progressive.” Be not disobedient to the heavenly vision given you in your call. Ask God how it is to be sustained and fulfilled. Honour the answer He gives you to that question and  seek true grace to honour those who are sure they have heard something different from what has been spoken to you.

I feel an extra level of concern for those of you who like myself knew that you were specifically called to the Church of Scotland to be a preacher of God’s Word and a pastor to His people and to share as widely as possible the gospel of redeeming love for a lost world; for those of you  who have perhaps felt grieved at the Church of Scotland’s chosen and increasingly cemented trajectory. If God is holding you to that original calling, may you discover, as I have done,  that He who calls is faithful. Know that while no longer in active ministry, you have my prayers. There can come a day when according to Scripture  God says he will not listen to His people’s prayers, even by those intercessors who have been proven to have power to truly prevail with God. I hope that day has not yet come around again.

God Bless

Kenny

“If you could read my mind,” most mornings when I wake up you would find confusion, disorientation, and a hundred half sentences leading nowhere in particular. None of the Charismatic remedies seem to cure this, such as shouting “Hallelujah” with my first breath!  That will have to wait for a few more hundred breaths. The evangelical remedies don’t work either: I read Scripture and instantly forget what I have read. It just won’t stick…. till later in the day.

In my experience of illness and medication and medication for medication,  infused with the daily presence of the God who loves me and who heals, I have only recently learned to let this mishmash of conflicting tides spend its force and not worry.  (With limited energy of every type I need to pick which battles to fight and which to leave to burn out.)  In the settling period as the hundred half thoughts begin to lose volume, I usually become aware of one thought  quietly dominating, a thought that peace rests and grows upon.

Today the peace of God seemed to rest upon the word “receive.”  Memories were awakened of different experiences of being on the “receiving” end of being “Received.” One memory was of visiting a fellow minister who had asked me to come and see him. His wife met me at the door and said in ominous tones, “He’s in the study, just go through.” I did. The scene that greeted me was my fellow minister sitting behind a desk in front of which was a seat for me. Being “Received” was a very formal affair, stoked heavily with an awareness of being “restrained.” The conversation felt like being straightjacketed to that solitary seat by accusation and humiliation. It was not a nice experience. The relationship sadly never prospered in any meaningful sense. If I had more sensitivity to the Spirit in these days, I might have refused the invitation to meet in the first place. It was a harmful experience.  Being “received” was a euphemism (a word, by the way, which I have only heard in the last 10 years in conversation in cafe church in Wester Hailes!)  for being “controlled.”

After this memory, my mind was flooded with instances of times where my experience of being “received” was very different, a world apart. Space was made for me, rooms and wardrobes cleared for me, my personal likes and dislikes to do with food etc. humbly regarded without question, the run of the house given to me; in fact more was offered than I felt fully comfortable to receive!

In what manner have we received God, Father, Son and Spirit? That was the life-giving thought this morning. I saw myself like the headmaster behind  the desk. On the solitary chair in front of me, one person was sitting on another person’s knee, while a third person was moving around the room, like a warrior from some ancient time, disturbing book shelves, picking up precious ornaments with a sense of authority and delight, despite my discomfort.

Remember when you receive the God who is love, you are receiving a Lion to prowl around wherever He chooses. I might not always appreciate the way a room in my house looks after He has walked about it, or as He is walking about in all the rooms currently. Of this I am very sure: The mightiest of Lions is in the House; the other one, the wounded and defeated one, is outside the house; though not to be mocked as he is still dangerous and intent on devouring

Where in the rooms that make up you, would God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit seek access this day?  Can you trust Him to look with compassion and mercy into a room you hoped would stay shut to every gaze forever? Can you trust Him with being allowed to pick up the most treasured items that make up you? I hope you can. After all, the thought of a headmaster behind a desk, lecturing and trying to negotiate terms while a fully armed invading Viking warrior is freely walking where he pleases is a bit ridiculous.

Well, there’s the morning thought that stilled the storms of a hundred half sentences with the thought of a mightier storm, mightier  seas and winds and adventures to come. There’s all the difference in the world between a half sentence leading nowhere and a sentence that continues to be written and is not ended yet. Glory!

God Bless

Kenny

This prayer of Charles de Foucauld searched my soul and refreshed me today.  This is what being like God’Son means: The Father’s will is what  I accept and surrender to with meekness and intentionally embrace and  humbly pursue. A crucified person has no further plans of their own. They can curse God for what is happening or say, “Father into thy hands I commit myself. I entrust   to you the very depths of my being.”

…and now the prayer….

Charles de Foucauld

Put this on Facebook but realised that “WordPress” followers would not have got it. So just for you, here it is!

Christ loves righteousness and hates wickedness. Well, that’s what it says in my bible. He looks for compassion and righteousness in and from His body, The Church. Seems to me that grace has become a word that even in the church is allowed to slay every other truth. Why has repentance been dumbed down? Without holiness no one shall see God.

Grace sophistry is a weapon in the enemy’s hand, keeping many on the broad road that leads to destruction. He uses it so often until he gets even believers to think about doing something we would never have allowed in our lives as a believer or as The Church in another day, as it is contrary to God’s Word; eventually he sows the seed of a thought, “Well, I guess there is another way of looking at it,” and waters that received and planted seed, until sin is made welcome, like a stray cat warming itself at the fireside. We begin to feel affection for what we used to resist. The camel which we allowed to warm its nose in the tent and tabernacle, has moved in! It is given rights of habitation; Christian lives become occupied territory rather than free.

Perhaps you are a Christian who needs set free from enemy occupation. Find a servant of Jesus Christ, in good standing in the church and community, preferably known to your own minister or pastor and speak about deliverance with them. If they are genuine they will help you into freedom from demonic troubling through the Name of Jesus, or on the other hand set you free from the fear there is something demonic and suggest more relevant help for your situation and need. Steer clear of those who are not part of a church accountability structure, but rather operate like lone wolves. Steer clear of those who make a song and dance of the whole thing and make a spectacle of people by ministering very publicly to make a great show of their authority. Nothing is new. Even in the bible times there were false apostles who were quite willing to hit people physically as if to make a show of authority. It still happens. We are gullible more than we realise, even those of us who think we are not. Avoid these Super Apostles like the plague. I never thought their nonsense would take hold in Scotland, but it has. Usually all they set people free from is their money….

Feeling great sorrow as I remember someone speaking as an evangelical at the General Assembly asking for evangelicals to be given more time to move away from Scripture….. that we were not there yet… Another assembly, I think the phrase was  that “Constrained departure from the traditional view” about a particular matter under discussion should be allowed. I guess the days are coming soon enough when God’s Word on a matter will be seen as  merely the suggestion of the Almighty to His people, to His Church. Commandments and obedience are so passe´ …

Some things, there is just no other way of looking at, than what God’s Word says.

God Bless

Kenny

You may have gathered by now that technology is not my strong point. I thought if I posted stuff on Facebook it would go to WordPress etc but apparently it is the other way round.

So for those not connected to me on Facebook, this is something  I posted earlier on Facebook… and have expanded upon here!

Looking back on being a C of S parish minister, I think I managed to cope with most things I came across by the help of God. However there is one thing above all that brought me extreme discomfort through the decades: when I came across self righteousness. I always felt I needed a spiritual bath after encountering that. It saddened me beyond words. How can people be blind to their sin? That continues to be a mystery to me. I guess it is possible to be locked in a fantasy world….

I think this attitude damaged me more than any sin of  “the body” that I came across from time to time in God’s people, though that was deeply sad too. I guess that is reflected in the story of the Prodigal Son in what we read about the elder son. An office bearer in one of my congregations sat behind someone in church one Sunday  and said loud enough for the person and anyone else to hear, “Imagine the likes of her coming into this church.” It was not said in a tone of awed wonder at God’s Amazing grace but in a tone of self-righteous disgust! I have been blessed with many very godly elders and office bearers in all my congregations, but is it just my imagination or is the Kirk Session or for that matter the Congregational Board often the place where the odour of angry self righteousness wafts into the room more often than can be coincidence?

The only meetings I have ever come home to the manse crying over were ones where proud self-righteousness ran riot. Sins of the “spirit” (if I may use that word in a colloquial rather than theologically accurate way) are so damaging to the Church of Jesus Christ, scarring its fellowship, mocking its mission.

Praying for all you ministers of Christ who this very night may have been vomited over by self-righteousness from your church leadership meetings. May the God of all comfort be close to you. May you sense His smile and know His personal embrace.

God Bless

Kenny