Remembering when I fist read the words quoted below in 1st. Peter as a 13 year old, in the RSV bible I had bought after my conversion at SU camp. They left me speechless. On this Good Friday, they still have that impact upon me: this is why I live; this is what I live for; this is what I have sought to minister; this is why I know I am going to heaven when I die; this is the reason I will live forever; the sting of death is the law and Christ  has drawn that sting by paying  HImself  for the broken laws that Father, Son and Holy Spirit made. This too is what I was blissfully ignorant of; this is what I was completely unconcerned about until grace opened my eyes. Sadly, this is also the gospel that is being increasingly despised by those who claim to be part of the “church.” I saw that happening when I was converted, I see it still. However, I am a debtor to the grace of God which chose me and loved me in eternity and loved me in time, before I ever loved Him. What He has done for me when I was ignorant, He can do for others. Salvation is of The Lord. He can convert someone who has no intention of being converted and can save someone whose will is set against being saved. Wherever did we get the idea that God is a gentleman? He tramples human will and decision underfoot without so much as a by or leave when He so chooses. That is why there is hope for any person. Not because they can change but because God can intervene and change hearts totally against our own will! He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and, fearful thought,  will harden hearts too as He chooses.

Here are the words. There are a huge variety of people who read these blogs in surprising places. I know some of you are ministers of a more liberal perusasion than I am. Will you read these verses and think of the lamb slain since the foundation of the world? Maybe this Good Friday as you preach to others from a place of knowing Christ only distantly,  you will be converted and become a born again Christian (there is no other sort of Christian than one who has been converted and born again)  and  like John Newton start preaching from this Good Friday the gospel you  have long laboured to destroy.

“You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake.”

God Bless

Kenny

Six days before the Passover, the Passover lambs were thoroughly checked for imperfections. If none were found, their feet were anointed with oil. Two days before Passover, they were checked again, and if it was confirmed they were without defect, they were anointed upon their heads.

According to John 12, Jesus’ feet were anointed by Mary six days before the Passover. According to Mark 14, a woman, whose name we don’t know anointed Jesus head two days before Passover. “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” “My Jesus, God’s precious sacrifice!” By the way, these two women were more in tune with Jesus and his approaching sacrifice than any men! Jesus deeply appreciated the insightfulness of their love. It must have been like a beautiful refreshing stream, from which He drank with gratefulness, as the cross drew ever nearer…

Moving on to Good Friday: around Christ’s head and feet as He hung on the cross, the perfume of insightful, appreciative love infiltrates the darkness, the first fruits of a harvest still being reaped…fruit from His travail…

May Christ, seated at the right hand of His Father and our Father, be surrounded by the fragrance of our appreciative love this Holy Week.

God bless

Kenny

What do grace and truth sound like when blended together in perfection? Well, there can be various tones, some of them exquisitely beautiful and tender beyond description. Here is another tone, however, and a more sombre tone it is,  from the One who is the Light of the World. It is only one thread in the overall perfect tapestry  of the true grace of God which has appeared for our salvation, but it is there. All these words are words of Jesus, in Matthew 10:

“When you enter a home give it your blessing. If it turns out to be a worthy home, let your blessing stand; if it is not, take back the blessing.”

“Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

“…everyone who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father in heaven.”

“I came not to bring peace, but a sword.”

“If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine.”

I also thought of these words from Matthew 7 as I was reading in Matthew 10:

“… I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’ “

All of this is part of the true grace of God, from the lips of the one who “has the words of eternal life.”

God Bless us all as we live in and declare to one another and to a lost world His amazing grace in all its confrontational and consoling glory.

God Bless

Kenny

“9When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters,e were killed just as they had been._ (Revelation 6)

Jesus’ way is the descending way of love to borrow another of H. Nouwen’s memorable phrases. If you want to know what leadership means, look at Him. It means stooping to wash feet, to humiliation, to hiddenness and being treated as something to be gotten rid of, passed over and jeered at.

It is in the descending way into apparent irrelevance that we become truly the light of the world, awakening seeds of longing for another way. So many have become bewitched by the false cult of relevance and influence.

Here is how we know if we are a leader in Christ’s eyes. Have we washed anyone’s feet recently, stooped lower into the mire than anyone else seems prepared to go? Or have we got our ideas of what leadership looks like from a source other than Christ?

God bless

Kenny

“I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn over what is going to happen to me, but the world will rejoice. You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy.”

Of course these words of Jesus in John 16 refer to the specific sadness and its overturn that the first disciples were about to experience as Jesus went to the cross. However, at the same time, there is a principle of spiritual life here if we can receive it. The principle is this: sorrows become birth pangs of future life and even joy.

I often quote Henri Nouwen. He says what I want to say, but more beautifully and memorably. I am thinking of how he expresses this truth: “…what seems a hindrance becomes a way; what seems an obstacle becomes a door; what seems a misfit becomes a cornerstone.”

When Jesus is allowed to be Lord in our sorrows, as we wait in patience and expectation that trust in the goodness of His Father and ours awakens, it can become a preparation time for Kingdom of God joy to be birthed once more.

What a promise and declaration! “Your weeping will be turned to joy!” Don’t push that word away in frustration. May God give you this day even a passing moment of quietness from the clamouring that so often fills our souls, to be able to say, “Yes, Lord,” to His word.

God bless

Kenny

My energy levels are not what they were. It is good when you are given wise advice, practical advice, in the form of energy saving tips!

Grateful for 2 such tips from Henri Nouwen. Thought I would share them.

1: Making judgements about other people wastes a lot of energy. “We hear a lot, see a lot and know a lot. The feeling we have to sort it all out in our minds and make judgements about it can be quite oppressive.” ( Bread for the Journey)

2: The need to decide what to focus energy upon. “What is my main task during ‘my little while’? I want to point to the signs of the Kingdom to come, to speak about the first rays of the day of God, to witness to the many manifestations of the Holy Spirit among us. I do not want to complain about this passing world but to focus on the eternal that lights up in the midst of the temporal. I yearn to create space where it can be seen and celebrated.” (Sabbatical Journey)

May these tips bless you too!

Kenny

Just a very short blog mirroring something I posted on Facebook. If we were to make a list of verses out the bible that Christians do not really beleive, what verses would you suggest should go on that list?

R.T. Kendall says that the most disbelieved verse in the bible is Luke 6 verse 37:

“Judge not, and you will not be judged:”

His reason for saying that: “We do it all the time.”

Ouch! I mean OUCH!

Well, that has sent me off to sleep, knowing I need a Saviour, grateful that I have one and His life is in me. There is hope.

God bless

Kenny

The bible seems to speak of stages of growth in Christ. For example in 1st. John we read of Children, Young adults and Parents in the faith (to bring up to date “children, young men and fathers”).

I have found over the years that many Christians have been denied a spiritual childhood. Just as in the natural when people have been denied childhood simplicity and carefreeness from responsibility, all sort of problems can follow, well, it is the same when people have been denied the simple security and enjoyment of a spiritual childhood. They have been rushed on to be involved in service, or force grown in the Word, before they have even known the Father and reached a security in His love. Minds and service expand fast, but hearts are stunted.

…and so it can happen, that people are involved deeply in the Lord’s work but forever insecure in the Lord’s love. I think it would surprise many a leader how deeply insecure many people in the pews are in the Father’s delight in them, many who are indeed deeply involved in the church and have been for years. They are serving beyond their hearts. When grace breaks through a new longing is birthed. Even those regarded as Fathers and Mothers in the faith find a new song rising in their hearts:

“I want to be a child again
I want to see the world through five year old eyes
To walk with my God wherever He may lead
to put my trust in Him.”

God bless

Kenny

Snowed in this morning. Just got word that the church we often try and go to in the evening is cancelled too,  for the first time ever! So was looking on line for a Word and Spirit church service…. here are my thoughts as I do that….

Difficult to find an online charismatic service today where:

a – there is not someone yelling at me through a microphone.
b – there is not some ridiculously long mini sermon going on before the offering. If it needs that then surely what comes in, money wise, is not really worth anything in the Kingdom of God sense of worth.
c – there is a congregation entering into whatever it is  the  worship team are apparently enjoying among themselves.
d – the congregation looks at all attentive to the preaching of the Word of God.

In one conversation the battle of the ages is set:

“Has God said you shall not eat….” An attack on the truth of the goodness of God. It works: Eve extends the prohibition spoken by God to include not even being allowed to touch the tree. Job done. God’s loving goodness cast in doubt: He is harsh and kill-joy and will spoil our freedom to fully enjoy life, so cast His chains aside.

“You shall not die…” An attack on the truth that God actively judges sin, that its wages are death, spiritual and physical. Job done. God’s wrath against sin cast in doubt.

Today millions of people will gather together, in fellowships small and large, who have been set free from Satan’s lies by Jesus Christ to honour who God is, who He unchangingly was, is and always will be. They will rejoice together that Jesus has opened their blind eyes to the loving goodness of our Heavenly Father and borne and taken the judgement, the death that was ours on the cross. May millions more yet sing the Song of the Lamb slain since the foundation of the world, the Lord Himself, pierced not for his transgressions but for ours.

God bless

Kenny

Dear friends

I am aware that my blog is read by people that I would never have thought would read such a blog. Today, I am thinking of those of you, perhaps from the UK, perhaps from another land, who have lived near the borders of becoming a Christian, but perhaps are unsure how to move from being near Christ’s family to being in that family for all eternity.

Today  was the funeral of a world famous evangelist, called Billy Graham. You may not have heard of him and you may not know what an evangelist is. Bascially an evangelist is someone who has been specially gifted by God’s Holy Spirit  to share the good news of Jesus with those who do not yet know him. God uses them to  help people  believe and become followers of Jesus Christ. Having watched the funeral on television, I wrote something on Facebook that I want to post here as this goes to many more countries than my Facebook posts. I hope it may help some of you to move from being near Christ’s Kingdom to living within it now and for eternity,  by the grace of God.

“Just watched Billy Graham’s funeral. So thankful for the gloriously simple and true gospel he preached and his son preached today. It is still the power of God to save all who believe, still the rescue from eternal perishing. It may just be there are some people who come across this post who are wanting to become Christians, looking for an answer to the guilt you know is truly yours because of sin. Here are 4 simple steps.

A – something to ADMIT. Along with everyone bar Jesus Christ alone, we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We are cut off from the heavenly home he wants to share with us, cut off from living in close fellowship with him in this life and in the life to come.

B – there is something to BELIEVE. Any good deeds or religious service or works cannot save me from my sins. You may have discovered that by personal experience: trying to be good, to do good things, to do the things religious people do, but the awareness of a real gap is still there. Only Jesus can bring you into fellowship with Your Heavenly Father who is reaching out to you in love right now. God the Father so loved us and wanted us to be saved and have eternal life rather than perish eternally because of our sins. He gave His Son to bear our sins on the cross that sin’s just punishment should be borne by Jesus for us. Jesus willingly came to the earth in the love of his Father for us to do just that. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The bible teaches us this: the punishment that Jesus bore brings the offer of peace to you and to me.

C – There is something to CONSDER. The cost of asking Jesus into your life and becoming his follower. Are you willing to make Him your Lord in all things? Are you willing to let him help you turn from all that is not the will of God for your living and embrace His will for you in all things for the rest of your days on earth? You will not manage perfect obedience all in one go, but Jesus will live in you day by day to help you in this life of being continually changed.

D – There is something to DO. Ask Jesus to come into your life by the Holy Spirit. If you mean it, He will, no shadow of doubt about it. At that moment you will be freed from the consequences of your sin and become a child of God loved with a love that will remain with you through all things and from which not even death will be able to separate you. Find a church that will honour the step you have taken, where this gospel is believed and preached and share fellowship with Christ’s people. Keep looking until you find yourself in a church that feels like the right one to encourage you, where you feel at peace within. The people there will help you in your early steps in your new life, your new life as a born again Christian.”

God bless you,

Kenny

To use a biblical phrase; “These things also I have observed….”

Those Christians I have met or known in any depth at all,  who struggle with mental illness have been the quickest to respond to the coming down of the Holy Spirit, more so  than any other people I know in the Charismatic world.

In two or three different settings I have found myself ministering in they have almost been like some sort of spiritual lightning detectors. When they raise thier hands, laugh or cry, I tune in more carefully and find they are right…God is there, He has come with a strong presence. Their hearts of worship, their delight in praising their Father in heaven has always challenged me. I pray for their blessing and healing, but I hope if healing comes they do not lose the treasure they carry.

Let’s not dumb down the God content in our ministry to those challenged intellectually or by mental illness. That is to show an ignorance of the difference between spirit and mind. We have much to learn from these precious people about meeting and knowing God and encountering Him in power.

God bless

Kenny