Woke up thinking of all who will “give” so much to others this Lord’s Day. Well, actually, this thought has been there on and off for a few days and I think it is from the Lord for you: “Learn to receive. Don’t push the goodness of the Lord away.”

Over the years many people have “given” to me in so many diverse ways with almost  incredible sacrificial love and immaculate timing.  Although it may be more blessed to give than receive, receiving from others is not wrong. Jesus was the supreme giver, but he appreciated moments of receiving and did not push them away with awkward embarrassment. He received the generous  tokens of Mary’s love as she anointed him  and dismissed with anger  the idea there were others more needful of such generous expression of insightful love and affection and  help than himself. He did not send away angels who came to minister to him, or say to them, “Help someone else. I can cope thank you.”

Don’t push away the goodness of God in whatever form that goodness is offered to you today. It is not Christlike to always give and never receive.

God bless

Kenny

A companion piece to the theme of my last blog for those of you not on Facebook to peruse….

“So, acceptable one world religion is staking its claim with increasing alacrity in the UK: get rid of the vertical and keep it all horizontal. This is the form of religion that is most compatible with political life in its high profile manifestations and seen as the only way ahead for a broken world powerless before so many destructive forces.  No one is going to disagree we should care for one another, so let’s just leave aside the God who speaks, commands, calls to repentance and offers eternal life in no other name than Jesus. 

History teaches that even amongst Church leadership there are always those prepared to raise their hands and say “Heil” to new dictators who promise good visions at least in part, but soon show what energises them. 

Fortunately history and the present day remind us that there  have always been others who lift their hands to God and say ‘Jesus is everything to me.'”

Anyway, this horizontal without the vertical emphasis is often not as strongly principled as it seems to claim for itself: have just been called an “idiot” and “an ar _ e of great degree on Facebook by someone who said to me that God wanted us to love each other! I have been called worse….

God bless

Kenny

For those of you who don’t use Facebook, here is something I posted there…

Sometimes Christians are too nice to say it like it is, and others say it for us in a way we never should or could. Read a quote from Russel Brand somewhere in a thread in a friend’s post that is quite insightful  in its crude offensive way  about what lies behind  attacks on Christian belief : “I don’t see atheists queuing up to call the Dalai Lama a dickhead.” 
I know even my friends might feel unable to give a “like” to this post…but I hope you get the point: the growing liberal establishment assault in Great Britain upon religious belief is not as general or as intellectually honest as it would  claim: it is selective, cowardly and inconsistent within its own self. It is anti Christ. Of course it shows its face in church guise as well…. the writings and thoughts or demands of other faiths or from the secular world given more honour than the teaching of the bible and the revelation and incarnation of God in Christ.. Indeed, the bible is set aside in many church discussions.
 The murder of biblical faith, the strangling of historic Christian belief when it happens in church circles is of course done slowly with self congratulatory politeness, a calm manner and a smiling face  in a way that models to the world how to debate… it is in reality worryingly psychopathic.
Kenny

My friend Rich Johnston asked me on Facebook the following question:

“What would you say is some of the most powerful and memorable preaching/teaching you have heard over the years and why?”

Well, it was an opportunity to be indulgent, nostalgic and speak off the cuff without much thought! What minister who loves to talk could resist replying?  This is my list thus far that I gave over 2 replies to Rich with one or two updates:

“Jack Deere when he spoke at CLAN Gathering. Unlike many visiting speakers he had taken time to find out what God had done in Scotland to help us thing about our heritage. So many visiting speakers fail to take this simple God and people honouring approach, but impose a culture which is foreign to us and also mock what is true to us. The present dishonouring in the conference scene seems to often be we must all look, sound and minister like Americans! Why? I AM A SCOTTISH CHRISTIAN. I DON’T FEEL ANY NEED TO CALL GOD “Poppa” nor even Pappa for that matter. I can manage “Father, Abba Father.”

Jim Graham. He showed what it was to honour Word and Spirit. The reason? He carried an experience of both due to the events and the processes of God’s working in his life and a desire that God would be glorified by a Word and Spirit honouring Church. Some people rely on a one time event of empowering, some emphasize the sort of “keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit” truth. Biblically, it is not an either or but both and…. sadly we often seem happy to listen to preaching that shows academic or entertainment skills with no evidence of either/or or both/and in terms of the filling of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom He brings from above.
.
Dr. R.T. Kendall for the authority he shows in challenging the evangelical and charismatic church. I deeply admire his ability to admit he was wrong about some things and his committment to work out in what direction the Sovereign Spirit of God is moving. I guess why that is why God opens fresh doors for him even at the age he is at!

John Arnott for his faithful presenting and giving away the Father’s love so freely to so many in so many places for so long.

Jackie Pullinger for being willing to make us feel uncomfortable.

But, on the whole, pastors who feed their flocks good food year by year are my heroes and heroines. As someone who has spoken in conferences for 15 to 20 years all over the place, I can say that speaking at a conference is a breeze compared with Sunday by Sunday preaching except for the time I spoke with an interpreter somewhere who did not like what I was saying and made listening torturous for all. However, the gathering and the leadership realised he was being a naughty boy. He was replaced and God blessed and honoured His Word. But this conference malarky is ultimately less powerful than local church ministry, though in the heat of the moment it can have a greater Wow factor or emotional impact and have a greater entertainment factor too. Nothing wrong with a rip roaring, refreshing conference – I was involved in the leadership of one for years that drew together thousands of people in Scotland with participants from 500 churches and with 250 – 300 senior leaders attending! Nothing, however, is as needful as Word and Spirit in pulpits in local gatherings of believers week by week.

Also:

Hugh Black, co founder of the Struthers group of churches for reasons many and precious. Also his daughter Mary. Could write for paragraphs…

Paul Cain for nuggets of pure gold amidst some of the most confused and badly structured preaching I have heard!  God have mercy on his child, Paul. The church to a large extent large having taken from his ministry, probably won’t… we are not good at restoration.  It goes without saying that sometimes those who fall do not want restoration in any true sense of that word. Not all do.  Pride is a terrible thing as is the deceitfulness of the human heart. God knows our hearts. The Church at large seems  to offer either nothing in terms of restoration and hope, or a quick return to ministry on the basis of publicly agreed and announced excuses, rather than time and space for true repentance: e.g., a speaker who admits adultery is applauded after a confession, but  continues with their ministry and cements their adultery rather than turning away from it and back to the Lord. Satellite TV and an appetite for showy ministry, that seems to think the more bizarre a ministry is the more it is of God,  encourages both the falls and meaningless restorations.

Rob Parsons. Single best talk I have ever heard anywhere. It was on the subject of prodigals.

Bishop T.D. Jakes for being his unique redeemed self in his communication style. Pray to be the same in terms of that glorious Creator honouring freedom, not to copy his style. If I, as a 5’4″ white Scot, were to copy a large black American preacher, strutting, shouting, glaring and dancing, that would be sort of stupid. By the way I shouldn’t even copy another Scot, though of course influences rub off on one another.

Joyce Meyer for helping me to understand what lt means from the bible and in day to day living to die to self in Christ. Think what you want…Rich asked me for my list. I don’t think he asked you for yours, though he might do that yet! She’s God’s “Wee Joyce.” Some of you will feel furious about that, you will feel more furious when I tell you God told me that is who she is to him. How do I know he said that? Well if you can’t hear what God is saying and recognise it and distinguish His voice from your own thoughts, well, that is for another blog. You can learn. Below the international ministry, behind everything that people criticise, she is “Wee Joyce” to God,  protected and to be protected in prayer.

Diana Rutherford, Struthers Cumbernauld, for reminding me in my weakened state, of Jesus and the Life of God within me. Every sermon I hear is like  life-giving manna to my soul right now! Indeed at times, it is heavenly manna bringing refreshing to my body as well as my soul in this time of felt daily weakness. Gutted when I cannot get there.

Martyn Lloyd Jones for two reasons well expressed by others; firstly, he showed logic on fire with The Truth and The Spirit: secondly, I heard what anointing is like on preaching; sometimes you have to go round the runway a few times, then all of a sudden, lift off; to change the metaphor, the catching and riding of the wave begins! Lift off doesn’t happen every time even in the ministries of those who experience lift off a lot, even almost always. When it doesn’t happen it can be like watching paint drying, or waiting for a kettle to boil, but it never seems to get there. Amazingly God can use the “watching paint drying” sermons to save and bless some at least. There’s always another day…. public humbling is no bad thing, in fact it is helpful and even perhaps at times needful. It is a nicer  experience to humble ourselves privately, that goes without saying,  but if we want the anointing at whatever cost, there are plenty stories of individuals God has used to teach us that sometimes the cost of that greater anointing has been a certain degree of public humbling and even public or church rejection. It helps others to take us  preachers down off of any pedestal  we have been willingly or unwillingly placed upon and  reminds ourselves and others of what we are like if God does not show up in grace and power.

John Paul Jackson for demonstrating that God is doing what He has always done and is who He has always been. He served Scotland in CLAN Gathering and Streams Ministries so so humbly, demanding nothing, offering everything.

Henri Nouwen and Jean Vanier for reminding me of the priorities of Christ.

Bishop Zac from Uganda when he asked us all at New Wine, Shepton Mallet, “When are you Christians in the UK going to give up the idol of safety!” Wow! Shaft of lightning type moment….led to new things….which illness cut short.

Rev. John Murdo Smith from the Hebrides for filling whatever gathering he is in with the impact of the personality of Christ, even though he spoke in Gaelic the once or twice I heard him preach and  I did not understand a word with my mind. If only I could be like that….not like him for we are different people….but like him in terms of carrying Christ in an unselfconscious fullness, spreading Christ’s fragrance in a beautiful way among the people of God and wider afield. A child of revival and it shows.

I could add many more. This is what came to mind without much thinking, though sharing some of my thinking behind it all ….

God Bless

Kenny

Less steroids, so less posts. However, woke with what is said of Christ in Isaiah 53.10 running through my mind: “…. and the will of God will prosper in his hand.” Why not turn this into a prayer for yourself today? “Father whatever I go through this day may your will prosper in my hands.” Turn it into a silent prayer for others you meet today. Should the prospering of the will of God in us not be the deepest longing and the truest prosperity  we seek? “Father, may your will prosper in us, through us, despite us!”

God bless,

Kenny

Ever prayed for someone, for something to happen “right now” in the Name of Jesus and it did not happen? How did you feel? How do you think the person you were praying for felt? Do you know what they were thinking about God, about themselves, about you?

How did you feel and what did you think when you prayed with more passion and the thing still did not happen? How do you think the person you were praying for felt then? Do you know what they thought second or third or tenth declaration round, or the fifth time they were pulled to their feet from a wheel chair, commanded to walk and fell towards the floor in weakness unhealed  in front of everyone? What did you think about God or about yourself or your prayer or ministry style or about the Word you believed you had stepped out and acted upon, the instructions from a teaching conference you had followed and were obediently trying to put into practice?

Ever been prayed for by someone who prayed loudly and authoritatively, perhaps within the hearing of others, that something would happen to you “right now” in the Name of Jesus and it didn’t? How did you feel? What did you think about God, about yourself, or about the person praying for you? Do you think the person praying for you knew what you felt or thought? How did the experience affect your confidence and faith to ask for prayer again? Is it still affecting you?

Faith does not ignore fact and should not resent or avoid follow up enquiry and investigation. It certainly should never ignore the vulnerability of people. It does not pretend a satisfactory outcome or blessing has happened if it has not. When we ask our heavenly Father for a fish not only does He not give us a scorpion but He does not say, “Here, take bread instead of the fish you asked for.” He may of course say, “Here’s the bread my child, and let me give you some fish as well!”  Yet that is the sort of bartering God that is often presented rather than a trustworthy Father who gives what His children have asked for: “Don’t worry, If you are not healed, you will surely be blessed in some way” is the announcement from the front backed up by predictable applause and cries of “Amen!”  It has become a mantra in charismatic circles, but it is not good enough or responsible enough or humble or honest enough, commonly said though it may be.

There is a lot of humble learning and loving  to do concerning the giving and receiving of prayer. Please know that I am charismatic/Pentecostal to the hilt as I ask you to think through these things. I have known personally healings, prophetic anointing and calling, Word of knowledge, Discernment of spirits, deliverance, tongues, miraculous appearance of money and oil and gold dust from nowhere, miraculous transportation from one place to another on more than one occasion. I have been slain in the Spirit many times, overwhelmed with the immediate presence of God so powerfully, I knew if I was to live in the eternity of God’s presence I would have to be changed to bear it! Flesh and blood could not enter such an inheritance without perishing. I much prefer to talk about my weaknesses mind you, for these are the places where my encounters with God have been the most treasured. However, sometimes Paul set out his credentials, so there is biblical precedent for my foolishness, though I am not comparing myself with Paul, just sharing in his folly! I share in his other “folly” as well: the preaching of Christ crucified and now gloriously alive and the Coming King.

You see as an insider as it were, as a  Charismatic/Pentecostal Presbyterian, it grieves me that the Charismatic movement which once in earlier decades trusted in the unpredictable but trustworthy action of God is now awash with theories and programmes to get the works of God done which seem to produce blessing and great disappointment side by side.

Time to get on our knees, repent of all lack of integrity and lovelessness toward people in their vulnerability. Time to stop pretending things have happened when they have not, or greatly exaggerating true happenings. Time to stop putting so much hope in the books, the conferences, the speakers, the training in everything under the sun and seek afresh the Sovereign life and activity of the mighty God who is fearful in praises and does wonders. So often, things that begin in the Spirit are kept going in the flesh, and by then sadly, there is such deep involvement, commitment of reputations and places and names and resources and finances and such full diaries for years to come, that it is difficult to admit that we are like Samson; we think we can do as we did before but the Spirit of God has left us and we knew it not? Or maybe we did know…..but feared the cost of coming clean and admitting it.

Away with the franchised God of programmes and techniques. Without the event of the Coming of God Himself to be God in the midst, they are powerless, though they are not without value and may make us feel good that we have done something rather than nothing. At least our willingness to learn, even  to pay for learning, to commit to whatever programme shows something in us is seeking. My feeling is that seeking is often genuinely provided for, but it can be subject to being fleeced as well. Let’s seek the Father who gives His children good gifts and does not barter until we accept something else we were not looking for. Let’s seek the Son, to come into a fresh revelation of what it means to be “In Christ,” and let’s seek the Holy Spirit until wind and fire uncontrollable, unpredictable, unfranchiseable is let loose in such power that saint and sinner will fall to the ground like dead men and women; until buildings will shake; until communities and continents even to distant islands will be impacted by the going forth of God that no one can trace to a programme, a person, a movement. May God come and blast a hole in all our well worked out theories, if He should so choose; may He use us and our gifting or ministry or set us aside, regard or disregard our work for Him; may He tell us we were right or wrong in all our doings and sincere works and passionate pronouncements and pursuits; may the fire of His holy Presence and the sharp two-edged sword from His mouth pronounce the verdict gold, silver and precious stones, or wood hay and stubble for all to hear if He sees fit; may the One whose coming no man can endure rend the heavens and come down and behave in a completely ungentlemanly way, doing what He wills without meekly fitting in to current cutting edge theological thinking or  the sincerest ponderings or planning or experiment, without seeking permission and without the slightest word of apology.

Health or its lack means I no longer have the platform, as it were, to say such things. I hope some may read and run. Oh if even just a few would do that….

God bless

Kenny

In the story of Jacob wrestling with God we see the belief in Word magic in play. Jacob wants to discover and then use the name of his assailant as there was a belief that uttering a name could enforce a deity to do your will. He had already stepped into occult practice before this incident. Actually he had also already prevailed with the God of all compassion before asking Him to reveal His Name, simply  by being a weak, sinful, unable-to-change-himself human being, like you and me. Our weakness attracts divine compassion much more than our strengths.

In the bible what Jacob sought to do  is part of misusing the Name of the Lord and breaking the 3rd commandment;  attaching His name to an utterance or action that is our own. This indeed is one of the ways the Lord’s Name is used in Satanism.

Can’t help but think I have often encountered this occult misuse of the Name of Jesus in the Church. “In Jesus Name” is not a formula to force Jesus to do what we want. I guess that is why often He does not honour proclamations, “name it and claim it” type approach. Many things have been declared over me that were supposed to happen “right now in the Name of Jesus” that never did happen. I admire the good intention of those doing the proclaiming. They wanted to help me, but Jesus is not subject to Word Magic on the lips of believers which mistakenly thinks of itself as  as faith and  authority. He does not have to fulfil a faulty proclamation of what He will do, He does not have to step in and save someone who is ministering from embarrassment and make them look good,  no matter the good intention behind their proclamation and declaration.

Are you praying occult prayers or making occult proclamations in the Name of  Jesus? Are you suffering through manipulative prophecy or prayer from others, perhaps now, perhaps from sometime in  the past? I have known times when I have had to ask God to set me free from the oppressive effect of the manipulative prayers of sincere believers who are praying somewhere or other for me “in the Name of Jesus.” Right now I am experiencing in my health the effects of those praying the will of Jesus for me  “in the Name of  Jesus.” It is so powerful! That phrase is not a magic formula to get our own way in our own lives or in the life of another person, or in the life of the church or congregation I may be part of.

Inadvertently (I hope), someone who prayed over you or prophesied over you using the name of Jesus at the end of their own best intentions or will for you might well have strayed into darker realms than they realise. Oh they probably didn’t mean to. Don’t make a fuss over it. Just forgive them. You don’t even need to tell them their error unless God allows you to do so in love so they can hopefully learn in humility.  They can probably see already their proclamation over you was not backed up by the Holy Spirit and know that everybody else saw that too and may hopefully be learning why that was the case and rethinking their way to a better, less fanciful understanding of God’s Word. Pray to be covered by the blood, the Name and the Spirit of Jesus and ask  that  only His  will and  His Word will release power into your life.

God Bless

Kenny

One of the scariest truths I know is that God lets us have what we choose. Seems to me we are choosing the way of getting rid of inconvenience. It is obvious in technological advance. However, there is a head of steam behind bringing life and everything in it under that test. The inconvenient almost​ born, get rid of them. The inconvenient dying, get rid of them. Inconvenient fact, deny its right to have a voice. The day may come when you or I are considered inconvenient….

Oh, it’s not rocket science. The essence of our sinfulness is “self” so at some point in time, convenience or inconvenience with regard to happiness  takes a higher place in decision making than right or wrong, indeed in many ways it becomes the self appointed arbiter of right and wrong. 

The problem is, it is not a principle by which right or wrong can be judged which in itself is inconvenient rationality and logic. Utilitarianism is a philosophy masquerading as a morality. It disturbed me greatly when I studied it decades ago at university,  but its roots are as old as sin itself. See Romans 1… “since they did not think it useful to retain…etc.”

Of course we have seen over the centuries and more rampantly in recent years now some parts of  the “Church” determined to choose this philosophy. Inconvenient teaching, get rid of it. Inconvenient commandments, get rid of them. Mission becomes,  “What message and endeavours would be useful to make a greater number of people in the world feel a greater happiness toward Christianity and the church and pronounce the verdict,  ‘Useful’?” “What is no longer useful about the Christian message that we should try not to mention?”
 
The inconvenient Christ. Inconvenient to the world, inconvenient to thoughts of church and mission. Let’s face it: He can be inconvenient to any of His followers…. He may be waiting to meet you and I  in inconvenient people, inconvenient circumstances or inconvenient Scripture.

God bless

Kenny

Reading the New Testament it seems that at least some Christians felt Paul was an embarrassment to the message of the Lordship of Christ, what with his experiences of all types of weakness, his imprisonment, his thorn in the flesh, his times of near starvation etc. He didn’t always look victorious enough to satisfy some people. Paul didn’t agree and neither do I, nor should you be sucked into that way of thinking. It can easily happen. You can even get to the stage of saying with one Prosperity teacher, “Now if Paul had my faith, he wouldn’t have had….”

Don’t pretend to be stronger than you are for the sake of the approval of others. You should never try and make room for wrong theology just to make someone feel better! As you live your life for Jesus, don’t be controlled by their faulty faith (which they will probably think is strong faith), their misunderstanding of God’s Word (which they are convinced is true) and their wrong image of what the victory of Christ in you should look like today (it should look like what it looks like in me). Be set free from the bondage of others’ opinion, approval or expectation. Discover what victory looks like in your unique life-story today as I continue to discover what it means in mine.

God Bless

Kenny

Further to my last blog…..

The unguarded strength of being able to keep going put me within a hair’s breadth of hospital….time for some renewed thinking.

I have not experienced healing of pneumonia  along the various lines of charismatic theory about such things. I have been aware of daily improvement which I believe will continue thanks to the prayers of many and the goodness and wisdom of God.

I can see why it has happened this way. Instant healing without renewed thinking about resilience would have put me within a hair’s breadth of hospital again sooner or later.

Conclusion: May I heal in the manner and at the rate that makes for wholeness rather than recovery so quick as to strengthen recklessness.

Any renewal of your mind needed today?

God bless

Kenny

Looks like I was walking around (albeit slowly and extra-breathlessly and in a state of exhaustion) for quite some time with Pneumonia on top of the other things wrong with my  my lungs and the difficult side effects of medication.

I have always had an ability to “keep going.”  The “in” word for this would be “resilience” I guess. This last few weeks has reminded me that even good traits and abilities and gifts from God need the yoke or the  bridle of the Father’s will to keep going in a good rather than wonky direction which would be  in effect disobedience to the will of the Father who loves us and wants to love others through us! A God given gift used at the wrong time, used irresponsibly, can be harmful to ourselves and others.

Is there any unbridled gift, ability, good character or personality trait in you? You surely know what I mean. Have you never been wounded by a true prophet or a sound preacher or abused in some way by someone with a ministry in healing or by a truly gifted pastor? Gifts and strengths even when they come from God do not absolve us from behaving responsibly towards our own selves and others. Well then, have you made sure your strengths are meekly bridled to the will of the Father?

Mind you, it’s a daily fight this “meekness,” this “bringing strength under control” sort of thing. Today, because I felt better than yesterday,  I wanted to get out there and cut the grass…..Yup, out of control strengths or gifting can harm us and cause upset to those around us. Indeed our strengths of character or ministry can leave a trail of destruction behind us which often we do not see as we forge on to other things. The good thing is I realised it today.

The grass can wait. I have benefited from more rest and tonight feel yet a bit more on the mend. Resilience does not et easily wear the yoke which sets it free to be a blessing. It shares that fact with every other strength. Meekness blesses the land before us and behind us as we continue to sow and plant and reap deeper and wider into our inheritance.

God Bless

Kenny

Rested the whole day. As I did so, I realised how much that was needed, there is no alternative for me as of now. I have also become aware of the God who speaks in many tones, all consistent with one another, but very varied.

Over the years I have been set free from listening to tones and voices not from Him. I guess that distinguishing of truth and lie is one that the Holy Spirit needs to help us with right from the start, even before we have had much chance to learn much of the Word of God. It is divine help we need even after we know something of the Word, as the devil uses the truth of Scripture as the basis of his lies. Most of his lies ride into the lives and thinking of believers on the back of God’s Word. That thought has scriptural backing; you can think it through for yourself and find the Scriptures that make it obvious.

However, distinguishing the tone in which God is speaking to us in at any given moment, i.e the right truth He wants us to hear right now, is sometimes more difficult. Why? Well if we are familiar to listening for one tone it can be difficult to hear other tones.

Let me give you a personal example. I guess that for me and for many more often what we notice is a sort of military tone. That is there in Scripture and we need to listen to it. It is a tone which I can hear regularly for reasons that I won’t go into for now. However it is not the only tone. If I allow God only a monotone voice then I miss the full teaching of Scripture, am not faithful to the writings and ministry of the Apostles,  will not discern the immediate voice of the Spirit and will damage myself in spirit, soul and body.

Today God has been speaking to me in a very specific tone which is not one that I always hear easily. I feel no need to hide the way in which the voice came to me. It came in the form of various pictures of rest. The effect of each of them was very physical. I felt myself under the blanket of the kind and compassionate hand of God, and heard one word, “Rest.” For me resting is the weapon that is effective as at this moment! I have failed to use it at many moments over the years. Today, I was hearing the tone of a nurse and a mother which the Apostles spoke in at times. The paradox is they were not always in militaristic tone as they spoke of ways that lead to victory!

WHAT TONE OF VOICE DO YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT TO RECEIVE? Take a look at your relationships with other people for clues: which tones are difficult for you there; Compassion, thanksgiving, correction, gentleness, compliment, warning, affection, approval etc., etc..

All of us can hear God. Jesus promises that. If we have trained our ears or had our ears trained by other influences  to listen for a scriptural but monotone voice, we need help to hear a wider range. Maybe you need to ask for that help today. It will help you, most certainly and lead to better health for spirit, soul and body; If you minister in some way or another, it will help others, help to set the captives, especially those captive to their own religion,  free.

God Bless

Kenny

In more active preaching days, I tried to listen to my own sermon as I was preaching. Looking back I am not so sure I listened to my own pastoring of others. What I mean is that I tended not to fully apply to myself the compassion and kindness of God that I was encouraging others to believe in. Why is it that we tend to be hard on ourselves? I genuinely try and obey the command to do unto others what we would have others do to us, but when it comes to receiving what I seek to offer to others in the Name of Christ, find that more difficult.

Boringly I have to say my health has not been good at all. As well as the underlying lung problems that caused me to retire early I have seemingly got pneumonia. Rest seems to be the best thing for me, and yet I find it so hard to allow myself to do that. Would I encourage others to “rest” if they were fighting the same things? Of course.

I have tried to write blogs while resting (!), but have been unable to do so. My daily dose of steroids have been multiplied by 4 along with other added medication. One of the effects of that for me is my brain gets filled with the most ludicrous quick fire thoughts and images, which in itself very tiring. It also means that I have to make sure I don’t confuse steroids for the voice of the Spirit of God. How do I do that? Well, all of a sudden in the midst of this river of thought flowing in full spate, there comes a thought which I sense has the Life and Peace of God about it. I reach out and grab hold of it and it seems to have an anchoring effect.

Why am I telling those of you who read my blogs this? Well, if I have anything worthwhile to say in the next period of time, it will be one of these anchor thoughts that I think has come from God. Any blogs for the next while are likely to be very short, just the sharing of a thought. I hope they prove an anchor to you. Some of them may seem like a word from God especially for you some days. Hold on to them, and in holding on to them may you find Christ’s strong grip of merciful, kind and compassionate love holding on to you in whatever type of river you may be  trying to swim in at this point in time in your life.

In the mean time, here is a repost, linking up to my opening thoughts. as I once tried to put my own sermons into practice I am trying now to fully receive my own blogs!

“I have met Christians over the years who seem to look at any sort of writings from the fields of psychology, psychoanalysis etc. with a great deal of suspicion. My own feeling is truth is truth. Just a couple of quotes for this blog and not much else. They have come back to my mind recently as I come to terms with certain changes in capacity. It is easy for me to fall into a wrong type of disdaining of myself.

I hope what I share here may help. I am pretty sure some of us would struggle with quite a lot of what  Carl Jung says, however I hope you can hear an echo of the compassion of Christ in these  particular words , and can think of the obvious Scriptures that are relevant without me telling you. I hope they might challenge you to love the tender  and weak places in yourself, the parts of you that may even hide from you! I hope what I quote here will help some of us become a safer place for ourselves. By the grace of God and the power of the Spirit I pray these various hopes I have will be fulfilled.

Here are the quotes:

“The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ — all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself — that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness — that I myself am the enemy who must be loved — what then? As a rule, the Christian’s attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us “Raca,” and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves.”(By the way Raca means calling ourself “fool!”)

– Carl Jung in Memories, Dreams, Reflections
“You cannot apply kindness and understanding to others if you have not applied it to yourself.”
– Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 515-516

Happy thinking. Allow your self to come out of hiding and be loved by God and by you.
Kenny

We are still awaiting the ultimate manifestation of the accomplished victory of Christ. 

Not having experienced all God has promised this side of eternity does not mean God’s promises or our faith has failed. It puts us in the company of all those who wait to fully experience  a city not made with hands. We who live this side of the victory of the cross, join the experience of the saints of old such as Abraham, indeed all the saints in heaven longing for the day when a final  “Now” will be uttered from the throne of God. It will shake all that can be shaken. 

Miracles as and when they happen are a sign that encourage us to know we are not waiting in vain. The day here, coming and not here yet are the content of the faith the hope that is an example of “on earth as it is in heaven.” In that land of seeing where many of our loved ones now rest without any pain of spirit or soul, there is still the need for waiting faith and waiting hope as well as love.

Had an interesting weekend. A new symptom appeared which was quite debilitating and uncomfortable, indeed painful. It meant not being able to go to something I felt God wanted Morag and I to be at on Saturday Morning. However on Saturday Evening I was prayed for in my absence at Struthers Church in  Glasgow, unbeknown to me. On Saturday evening the added symptom started to decrease and sometime on the Sunday it left me completely. I was able to go and fellowship with God’s people on Sunday Evening, which had looked beyond the realm of possibility in the 48 hours before. I was still battling with ill health and tiredness as indeed I am today, but made it and was glad that I did, as I heard worship and a sermon that renewed me in faith and hope. I know many of you pray and believe me when I say every prayer genuinely offered matters. From time to time there comes a prayer which tips the balance in a way it would not do if the other prayers had not been prayed.

However none of the above is what  I want you not to worry about! This is the thought that may worry you about my spiritual state. Not everything in the psalms is there because it is sound in doctrine or righteous. Everything is there because it is real. It is a book of real worship: all of me to all of God at all moments. The psalms reflect the authentic heart cries of God’s people. Sometimes the cries are godly. Other times the cries reflect attitudes and  requests and sentiments that are there in the hearts of God’s people even if they should not be. Sometimes there is a cry of unshakeable faith and assurance, sometimes a description of how that place was reached, and sometimes there are cries which seem to suggest a pilgrimage in another direction, deeper into confusion and pain.

I have a plea to make. Don’t base all your theology or belief in God on one psalm, otherwise by one track theology you will rob many people, including yourself,  of finding a voice for this moment, whatever this moment may be. Let me give you an example. To put too much stress say on “He heals me of all my diseases (Psalm 103)” is to ignore the cry of the psalmist when incredible suffering unto death is the living experience, a cry which ends with not much if anything in the way of light. By the way even the author of Psalm 103 died of something. His  spirit is with God awaiting the day of “The Kingdom come” in all its fullness along with myriads of waiting saints and watching and wondering angels, that moment when sick unto death bodies will be healed and raised incorruptible. “Oh but  Kenny, you cannot base your theology on experience, you must base it on what God’s Word says.” Exactly my point! There are so many helpful voices in the psalms  that tell me and you we are not alone, whether on the mountain top or in the valley. One track, one voice theology is by its nature exclusive and tends to invalidate both inconvenient verses and inconvenient experience and fact, and can even label a genuine strong faith in someone as wanting in some way; indeed faith can quite dismissively and disparagingly  labelled as unbelief.

I hope you may find your voice in the psalms often, and help others to find theirs.

God bless

Kenny

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

R.T.Kendall’s signs of a sleeping Church. Part of an article in Premier Christianity:

sleeping Church

Here are some signs we are asleep at the present time:

• The absence of conviction of sin
• A lack of the fear of God
• Little sense of outrage over the godlessness of society
• Watching pornography and feeling justified
• Avarice, greed and lack of financial integrity
• No sense of outrage over the Church’s lack of credibility in the world
• Little or no concern about people going to hell
• Little concern about the lack of knowledge of God’s word
• Indifference to the biblical view of marriage
• Indifference to holding grudges and unforgiveness
• Indifference to talking to people about Christ
• Tolerating heresies such as open theism and hyper-grace teaching
• Indifference to the teaching that the Bible is infallible
• Indifference to how much time is spent in prayer and quiet time

Don’t hit the snooze button!

God Bless

Kenny

Sharing my wonderings after being in church tonight and hearing afresh in Revelation of John seeing the Alpha and the Omega who walks among the candle sticks:

When a church or even a denomination is effectively in decline management mode, is that spin for Christ removing the candlestick?  What are the marks of a line having being crossed from ill health to divine judgement?

Just wondering…..

God bless

Kenny

Not many blogs this week due to little energy. However, as Sunday approaches, a very short offering!

These words from the book I use for daily devotions,  struck me as a good prayer to pray for whatever place we may meet with our fellow believers in worship this coming Lord’s Day:

Lord, take this place
And fill it with your presence
Let it be a haven where the poor in spirit sing
Take this place and fill it Lord
Fill it with your praise.

Come to think of it, why confine such a simple, beautiful thought to being a prayer for wherever your fellowship or congregation  gathers? It’s a good prayer for our homes as well.

God Bless

Kenny

An unnamed nobleman said this to Edwin, king of the land that would become known as Northumbria, after Edwin and his company had heard the gospel preached for the first time:

“The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter amid your officers and ministers, with a good fire in the midst whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door and immediately out another, whilst he is within is safe from the wintry but after a short space of fair weather he immediately vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from which he has emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space but of what went before or what is to follow we are ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.”

Good words to think about after Easter!  As a song with an annoyingly cheerful tune says, “There’s a light in the valley of death now for me, since Jesus came into my heart!”  Just wondering if helping people as they live this life ( which is being done by so many Christians and ministries in so many wonderful ways and which of course we are to do in Christ’s Name)  has pushed helping people be ready for eternity into the background in Christian outreach and mission?

God bless

Kenny

“Who is this who keeps darkening my counsel without knowing what he’s talking about?” (Job 38 verse 2.)

I think there there is a new fundamentalism arising or  perhaps I should say a new Political Correctness is arising which is infiltrating church talk about mission right across the theological spectrum. Don’t know what to call it, but it says things like, “God cannot work through that type of church” or “Of course God will not do the same thing as He did in the past. We can’t expect another… (put in here whatever move of God moment from the past you choose).., of course.”

Listen, God is God. He is in the heavens, rules above the sphere of the earth and does whatsoever pleases Him. He can move in familiar ways or new ways to honour His own unchanging Name and His own unchanging Word and His only begotten Son as well as to honour the works of faith of His church reaching out in mission.

How arrogant to form our theories and pronounce what God can and cannot do in our day!! We may miss the action of God if we insist He moves according to our preferences and predictions. We may even come near to blaspheming the Holy Spirit by speaking against His activity through channels we do not approve of for one reason or another. I think these times are crucial and nothing is more crucial than that we humble ourselves before God, listen more and speak less.

Hugh Black, one of the founders of the Struthers group of churches, used to be approached by people who wanted help from him to go deeper in God. One of the first lessons he would offer was a surprising one: “Learn to shut up.”

May God bless every work of faith in the land. That is not the same as asking Him to back us up in our pontificating or to confirm our carefully reasoned conclusions or to bless or rubber stamp works not of faith but of presumption. I once heard God say, “Kenny, this may surprise you, but I don’t believe about me all that you believe about me.” I suspect He may have said that type of thing more often than I have heard it…

God bless

Kenny

Isn’t it wonderful that God can save someone when they have no intention of being saved. He is the Lord who moves in Sovereign grace! Hallelujah!

Heard a testimony of an older man in Struthers Church, Greenock, on Easter Sunday evening at a baptismal service. He came to the church thinking he was coming to an illness management lecture for M.E. sufferers! Instead he found himself sitting in the back row of a packed church experiencing something he had never experienced before: “the beautiful presence of God.” In time he found Christ as Saviour and Lord and was baptised in the Holy Spirit. Almost as a throw away line, he added in at the end that he had also been healed of M.E.!

Heard a testimony of a young tennage boy as well. He went to an outreach meeting just so that folk would stop pestering him and he could tick the box and say he had “tried that” and it hadn’t worked for him. Well, to quote his own words to us all, “As you can see it didn’t work out that way!” He too found himself in the presence of God. The inner change in him through being in that meeting and encountering a living Christ was that having lived entirely for his own happiness, as though that was all that mattered, he found himself wanting to live for Christ for the rest of his days; again, converted completely apart from his own intention. It was evident, in a wonderful understated way, that he deeply regretted the life he had lived when he lived entirely for himself; regretted what he had done and the effects of that philosophy on other people. By the way he was from a loving but not a Christian home, which he was careful to intentionally honour as he spoke.

Pentecostals, it seems to me, are wonderful Calvinists in essence. They are just a bit more biblical about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, including the gifts of the Spirit, than many of us Scottish Presbyterian Calvinists! (Red rag being waved there! Please, Pentecostals and Calvinists, don’t lose your sense of humour and take me on…!)

By the way in case you think Pentecostals are too heavenly minded to be any earthly use, the C.A.P money course came up a couple of times in the testimonies I heard, including the testimonies from a man and a woman and their son who had all found salvation. Anyway, you know what? I don’t think I have ever come across a Christian who is so heavenly minded that they are no earthy use. I think the overwhelming danger facing the church is that of being so earthly minded that we are no heavenly use on the earth…

God Bless

Kenny