Today I was thinking back to University Days. I was particularly thinking of one lecturer who when he was approached due to the incomprehensibility of his lectures said, “I am an academic not a communicator.” I think it would be valuable for any lecturer who may indeed be primarily an academic not to excuse themselves from developing their communication skils though that may never become their strong point!

As I was reading Paul’s letters to Timothy a few weeks ago, I was struck by the fact that he is told to do the work of an evangelist. He was clearly primarily a teacher, pastor, leader type by gifting and calling and by the empowering of the Spirit, if not by personality, but nonetheless that did not absolve him from doing the work of an evangelist even if he was not an evangelist primarily.

I suppose, relating this to myself I have been primarily pastor/teacher, but that does not mean I can turn a blind eye to other aspects of ministry that might never be my number one thing. So for example I occasionally prophesy, I am evangelistically aware and try and bring folk to Jesus Christ,  I occasionally see new ground that needs to be taken, and can think about strategy which takes me vaguely into the area of the Apostolic – though everyone seems a bit vague as to what that means and usually give their own definition which sometimes bears little resemblance to what the bible says are the marks of an Apostle. That last one, the Apostolic, in the aspects of being the strategist, the seeing  new ways to new ground,  is something that bores me.  It is not my prime calling and not “me.”. On a scale of interest for me it is somewhere usually about -9 to -6.  It is as well that Ian and Ollie and others on the ministry team of Holy Trinity in Wester Hailes, have a stronger interest, more obvious gifting and even genuine enthusiasm for thinking in such ways as do many other people I know, love and respect. However, I cannot absolve myself completely of thinking in an Apostolic way from time to time even though “taking new ground” and “strategy” and “raising up” talk makes me yawn and become a bit tetchy and puts me on the verge of being sinfully cynical if I don’t nip things in the bud.

Friends, I am not quite sure that we can use Ephesians Chapter 4 in terms of ministry gifts described there to say that gives us the strategy for a healthy church today. Personally I think Paul was speaking historically and factually about how the church was birthed in its earliest years. However, I do believe God still gives the gifts mentioned there for the strengthening of the church. It is best though to think of these gifts on a sliding scale rather than a fixed point. So God gives to the church those who are Apostolic -y, Prophetic-y, Evangelistic – y, Pastoral-y, Teacher -y. I think that is a truer rendering of what is said. So as I illustrated from Timothy and from my own experience, whatever “y” I may most strongly be,it does not mean I can pass on the responsibility for other aspects of ministry to others.  A Prophetic -y person can do immense harm if they do not develop a pastoral sense and say instead, “Well, it is up to the pastors to cope with the results of my ministry.” An Apostolic – y person cannot ignore the need to hear the prophetic word of the Lord, or not care about the pastoring of the flock. Paul makes that clear. He carried every day the needs and concerns  of the Church of God with a pastoral heart. If anyone, even an individual  believer fell in some way then the Paul the Apostle said he felt that keenly.

There has been talk about the five fold ministry now for at least 3 decades but not a lot of fruit from all of that in the UK church at least. Being perfectly honest such talk is probably not received well or favourably in much of the church. It is coming in for renewed emphasis at this moment which could be a promising sign. However, if  people who long to see these ministries flourishing don’t accept the sliding scale, the “y” nature of ministry, then it will kill the work of God and the people of God rather than bring life.

So a couple of questions: Are you progressing in what is your most obvious ministry? Are you ministering in other ways as well, even though they may never be your main thing?

If we don’t get hold of that we will talk about the ministries of the Apostle, the Prophet, The Evangelist, the Pastor and the Teacher for another 3 decades with increasing frustration, suspicion and accusation, muttering under our breath about one another. It would be great to see people arise into their proper ministries, with experiential knowledge of other aspects of ministry and a realisation that thankfully for the sake of the safety of the church and its healthy growth there are people who are not like me at all, people I can learn to love and appreciate fully! By the way none of these five ministries means that a person is therefore automatically a good leader. We have assumed in the past that pastors and teachers are the leaders of a church. Not all pastors and teachers possess the separate gift of leadership. However we must not repeat the same sort of mistake mistake by thinking that all Apostles ( if we can agree what that means for today!)  or Prophets or all Evangelists should be regarded automatically as gifted leaders just because of their Apostolic or Prophetic  or Evangelistic gifting. They may or may not be particularly gifted in that way. Leaders  should gratefully make space for all the ministries in their thinking and practice  and decision making however these different ministries are represented or make that contribution, which will vary from setting to setting because of different church histories or different understandings of church government in the bible. Leadership is a separate  gifting of the Holy Spirit according to Paul…more of that another time.

God Bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

I found I was really blessed today through reading Paul’s letter to Philemon. If you have never read it or if it is  a while since you have done so, why not read it now? It won’t take you long.

Central to the content of the letter is a man called Onesimus. He was a slave who had stolen from his master Philemon and ended up fleeing to Rome. There he met Paul and was converted. Paul really valued the helper Onesimus became to him and wanted to keep him with him but decided the right thing to do was to send him back to Philemon not simply as a runaway slave but now as someone who was a brother in the Lord to his master. Actually ,in shortly over twice the time I have taken to write that paragraph you could have read the whole letter for yourself!

I know the name Oral Roberts will be a name that will cause differing reactions among my readers: that is probably now the biggest understatement of any blog I have written whatever I claimed in a previous blog was the statement deserving that award!  However, I have to say that one of my operating principles as a pastor came from listening to Oral Roberts preaching on a Satellite T.V. channel. He preached around the meaning of Onesimus’ name. It means “useful” or “profitable.” However he had been anything but true to fulfilling his name! He had not been profitable and indeed had been worse than useless to Philemon. All he had become was a piece of driftwood. Then Oral Roberts said this: “When driftwood catches fire it makes the best fire of all! He became driftwood set ablaze!” Through meeting Christ, Onesimus really did become useful . He was certainly useful to Paul. Some say he became a bishop in Ephesus.

As a pastor, even if it now mostly an online pastor, I keep the story of Onesimus in mind.  I suppose it almost goes with the territory of being a pastor that you are very loathe to write someone off as a useless piece of driftwood. You simply hope that one day they might indeed by the grace of God become driftwood set ablaze. Pastors are loathe to admit there is such a thing as dead wood that needs to be cut out and cut away. They don’t want to simply run ahead with their keenest supporters. Shepherds want to get as many of the flock into a state of health, feeding on good fresh pasture as possible.

Perhaps you are reading this and you feel yourself to be a piece of driftwood. You are maybe on the run from your past. You are maybe even on the run from the Lord. Perhaps you don’t know what on earth is the purpose of your life. Stop right where you are, and call out to the Saviour of Onesimus, the one who can turn a drifting or aimless life into a life that is profitable to God, to others around you near and far and  indeed to yourself.

Or could it be that there is someone you care about that is drifting? Not long ago, I heard of someone who through these blogs found their way back into a relationship with the Lord much to the delight of their family. Can you believe that piece of driftwood you are thinking of can yet catch fire? I hope this may help you to persevere with someone, to persevere in faith, hope and love, just at the point you were maybe thinking of throwing in the towel. I had a dream one night about demons telephoning their hellish headquarters in alarm because they had come across a Christian who was not giving in, but was fighting on and persevering; I may tell you about it one day. For today/tonight though,  I am just saying that the piece of driftwood you are frustrated about, who you cannot think about without sadness or discouragement may one day become the right hand helper of a significant leader, or indeed become a leader themselves. Onesimus was not the first or the last person dismissed by others as  “a useless cause” or “a waste of space” to be transformed by the grace of God to be a much loved and useful citizen in the Kingdom of God, here on earth. Tonight, before you shut your eyes, or tomorrow when you awaken, praise with me  the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of Onesimus!

“God of Onesimus, bless the driftwood who may find themselves reading this: bless  too the driftwood loved by those who read this! We pray for a season of driftwood set ablaze!”

God bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

It has been good to be back from parish ministry  and to take stock.  I find that God has been bringing about certain freedoms. I am very grateful for my evangelical and charismatic beliefs, and actually for me there is not a valid alternative that would work for me, though I certainly seek to learn from those from other stables.  I have to say that I have found that “evangelicalism” and “charismaticism” can have their unattractive and unhelpful aspects too. Often evangelicalism can become a sort of Phariseeism. The Pharisees’ main  problem was not, as is sometimes portrayed, legalism or a belief in salvation by works, but more basically they suffered and made others suffer from their self-assured pronouncement of who was part of the people of God, the saved, and who was not. Evangelicalism can become like that sadly, insisting on a certain formulaic approach to salvation, at the very least suspicious of any salvation outside a true blue conservative evangelical church or ministry. Charismaticism on the other hand can often seem to be a very competitive world, where people feel the need to make great and exaggerated claims for their ministries and all that can be done through the gifts of the Spirit. There can be a unintended dishonesty about it all and a damaging of people who are promised much when actually very little of what is promised is delivered.

With regard to the latter, I just have to say it is fact that there are some human situations which do not yield entirely to the operation of the gifts of the Spirit during a ministry time at a conference or on  Sunday, valuable and much needed as such times may be. The reason is very simple: sometimes every part of a person’s humanness needs to grow into freedom through choices and growing trust and faith; sometimes there needs to be a deep work which because of the nature of it can best happen between God and a person in private. God is interested in the whole person and affords each person dignity and indeed times of privacy and the gift of the passing of time when that is required. Let’s not stake out too much ground and claim it for the gifts of the Spirit  mentioned in 1st. Corinthians and a few other places as though that is the only sort of ministry the Holy Spirit is capable of doing.

One of the deepest forms of ministry is when you can do nothing for a person other than be with them, giving an assurance  that you will stay with them come what may, and offering them not trite but quiet and real hope for their future in some sense just by a faithful non-afraid presence in the face of what for them seems too overwhelming.

Over the years a few people have asked me and indeed Morag too “Do you think I will get better, will I manage, will I be ok?.” Where that question is asked, I personally see it as  a hopeful and positive sign spiritually speaking, and more often than not, I have felt liberty to say, “Well, yes, I believe so actually, but I don’t know what God will do or how He will do it. Don’t be afraid.” Words, pictures, the laying on of hands and any gifts of healing that may be around may have blessed these people to a degree, but to limit the ministry of the Holy Spirit to a few charismatic gifts and procedures is almost blasphemous, certainly presumptuous, and to exhibit an ignorance as to  what it means to  regard someone as a person, a human being whom God made, loves and desires to save and help.

The ministry of “being-there-knowing-you-have-done-all-you-know-how” and beyond that cannot do anything other than stay with someone, is not a ministry for quick “laying-on-of-hands-grab-a-word-of-knowledge-shake-them-shout-at-them” type of anxious cavorting around. It is not a ministry for bluffers or “have-a-goers-and-hope-to land-somewhere-vaguely-near-the-territory” approach. It is one of the deepest forms of ministry I know and not for the fainthearted. It may never get applause on a conference stage. I have been on the receiving end of that in the past and each time it was genuinely given and awkwardly received, but there are some things too deep, too holy for that, where we need to just take our shoes of our feet, stand or sit and wait on holy ground with a person and say very little. It is the sort of ministry each one of us will appreciate at some point in our life, even if it is not until our last moment that we treasure and value it. This is ministry that takes us to Calvary. It is the sort of ministry that Jesus sought from the disciples but was denied by them in Gethsemane. They could heal and cast out demons (well, most demons, as they still had some things to learn) but they could not at that point offer what they had first been called to by Jesus,  namely “to be with Him.” Thankfully that ministry was offered to Him on the cross by some. Many were hiding in fear but standing at the cross there were a few who could do nothing for Jesus  other than have love enough and courage enough to stay with Him whatever else they might have longed to be able to do for Him, but couldn’t. The next move was God’s alone to make… and make it He most certainly did! Hallelujah!

God bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

“Then spake Haggai the LORD’S messenger in the LORD’S message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the LORD” (Haggai Chapter 1 verse 13)

I am so glad I was at Holy Trinity, Wester Hailes on Sunday evening past. Rev. Iain Penman was preaching on Psalm 107 and it was quite simply one of the best and most helpful sermons I have heard in my life. It was so life-giving  to me myself, but it was also so sensitive and indeed challenging  with regard to some of the issues surrounding addictions that face some of the congregation. Iain showed us a pattern that recurs throughout the Psalm: Problem, Prayer, Rescue, Praise; that progression is now lodged in my brain! The sermon will eventually appear on the Holy Trinity website. It could help you or someone you know. Perhaps it would  benefit you to read the psalm right now with “Problem, Prayer, Rescue, Praise” in mind.

So I was blessed by the sermon. I was also blessed by people who spoke to me afterwards, including some who have more than a few struggles and difficulties to contend with. In fact they were the first to come up to me. They did so with genuine warmth and affection and also with a real degree of sensitivity: I was moved particularly by the way they spoke to me. Can I be honest with you? They didn’t perhaps say anything that anyone listening in would have considered profound, but what they said was real, full of genuine warmth and was a blessing.

I wonder if there is something for us all to learn from such readiness? Often we shy away from speaking to people because we don’t really know what to say. Perhaps we think we need to say something very profound, or we are scared we will say the wrong thing. When C. S. Lewis was widowed he commented that he really appreciated nervous young students who approached him and very awkwardly, stumblingly and self consciously and non piously  expressed their condolences rather than avoiding him and saying nothing.

A simple word can mean a lot. Remember that same truth when it comes to exercising the  New Testament gift of prophecy, a gift which as believers we are encouraged to seek by the Apostle Paul. At its simplest that gift is about saying something from God that will strengthen, encourage and comfort. Of course prophecies can sound weighty at times. They can  at times also  be quite detailed and even quite lengthy. However we can learn a thing or two from the Old Testament prophets here. Sometimes they spoke at great length, but on one occasion the prophet Haggai simply said this as a prophetic word from the Lord to His People: “I am with you.” The people were strengthened and stirred up by that simple word.

Please rid yourself of any notion that you need to be, or need to pretend to be, or at least need to try to  sound profound! Sometimes it is hearing the most simple thing, even the most obvious or self-evident  truth that one would almost think need not be said that can have the most profound effect on a person or a situation.

Maybe even this very day you will meet someone and you will know that God is wanting you to remind them that He is with them: as simple as that!

God Bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

I think one of the most wonderful prayers I have ever heard was a prayer of random thanksgiving in which Brennan Manning thanked God for trout in the stream, chocolate ice-cream, the wind blowing in a woman’s hair, music by Haydn etc… The Reformed part of me thought, “That does not follow the structure or content of Paul’s prayers,” but at the same time, it seemed to fit my heart as a child of God. It is, I must admit, maybe more the type of prayer we pray in private to Abba, but somehow overhearing and eavesdropping on the private prayer of a child of God secure in Abba’s love really blessed me.

There are times when I am just overcome with random thanksgiving for random things. 1001 things can spark that thanksgiving off. Once I was watching dogs swimming in the sea and playing happily on a beach. Somehow a whole stream of joyful thanksgiving seemed to arise, attended by carefree laughter. Out of that I found myself writing this poem about thanksgiving but also about lack of thanksgiving. I guess I am sharing it here because in my last blog I said that if by the grace of God we can live in constant gratitude and perhaps through so doing help a spirit of thanksgiving to be released in somebody else, well that can prove to be a powerful internal evangelist.

If you are not the poetic type, this won’t grab you: I appreciate that. In that case, ditch the poem but not the thrust of this blog. In private with Abba, start thanking Him for something that grabs your immediate attention; begin there, don’t end there. “Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” That may be an old line from an old song, but it is an ever new truth.

Fractions

For eightsome reels
And twin making waters,
For swimming dogs
And staggering toddlers,
For day-shared thoughts
And songs in the darkness…

Thanks rise … from where to where?

Internal Evangelist
Mostly despised,
One falls to the floor
a leper no more,
Nine dance through the door
Eighteen darkened eyes.

Copyright K.S. Borthwick

(Burntisland, 2012 – inspired by dogs!)

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

Luke 17:11-19 Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

11 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: 13 and they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. 14 And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. 15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. 17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? 18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. 19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

Nine got a healing, one heard the  blessing of “wholeness” or “wellness” being spoken and affirmed over him by Christ Himself. I can only speculate about the other nine as we are not told anything more about them, however in my experience both personally and as a pastor  it is possible for a person to be blessed, healed, set free by God but still not to walk in wholeness as a human being.

When it comes to the deep things from which people need to be set free , I would say they are things that are even deeper than health issues, deeper than social issues though of course a compassionate Christ cares about such things and asks us as His body to bring His help and healing into such situations. Remember that Jesus tells us that it is even possible to experience deliverance from demonic power and yet to end up in a worse state than before. There is something deeper in the heart of man that we need to be rescued from than sickness or demonic attack. Miracles in those realms are miracles,  a sign that the Kingdom of God is near, but they do not necessarily mean the person helped is interested in the food, the help of Christ, by which they could become alive with  eternal life. The easy word to use here to sum up what we need rescued from would be “sin” but what does that look like, feel like, sound like in a human being?

Well, here is another quote from that book “A Spirituality of Living” by Henri Nouwen. I suggested you buy it. It is very short and very readable. It is not “Charismatic” in its claims though it is full of the Spirit. It would not necessarily cross all the “t’s” and dot every “i” enough for some Conservative Evangelical people but it is Good News. Yesterday I quoted the best most angst free, truest to the ministry of Jesus, truest to what all our ministries should be about definitions of ministry I have ever read; I quote it here again for your convenience:

“All disciples of Jesus are called to ministry. Ministry is not, first of all, something that we do (although it calls us to do many things).  Ministry is something that we have to trust. If we know we are the beloved, and if we keep forgiving those with whom we form community and celebrate their gifts, we cannot do other than minister…We have to trust that if we are the son or daughter of God power will go out from us and people will be healed… Trust in that healing power. Trust that if we are living as the beloved we will heal people whether or not we are aware of it…” (“A Spirituality of Living pages 44 – 45.)

But, back on track now: where do we and those we minister to need to find wholeness? What is at least  one of the marks of wholeness in a child of God? What is one of the marks of every Christian minister who seeks to be a channel of wholeness to others? Well, here is another quote to think about:

“Healing often happens by leading people to gratitude, because the world is full of resentment. What is resentment? It is cold anger. ‘I’m angry with him I’m angry with this situation. This is not the way I want it.’… over time, there are more and more things we can be negative about. Resentment makes us cling to our failures or disappointments and complain about the losses in our lives. There is always a lurking danger that we will respond to life’s incredible pains with resentment… Jesus calls us to gratitude. He calls us to recognise that gladness and sadness are never separate, that joy and sorrow really belong together and that mourning and dancing are part of the same movement…the cross is the main symbol of our faith, and it invites us to find hope where we see pain and to reaffirm the resurrection where we see death. The call to be grateful is a call to trust that every moment of our life can be claimed as the way of the cross that leads us to new life…” (Pages 45 – 48.)

It is possible to be healed, delivered, forgiven, blessed, provided for and yet secretly be harbouring a resentment about the way things have been in my life. Wholeness is not pretending evil and bad things haven’t been part of my life, whether I have been the perpetrator or at the receiving end of such things: most of us have been victims at some point, all of us have been villains at some point also. Wholeness is about believing that the God of grace has brought me to this point and asks me to trust Him that everything destructive that has been is not more powerful than His love and what that love can yet bring about. It is about being freed from any resentment about the way my life has been, any resentment against other people, any resentment against God. Sometimes I look back at seasons of difficulties or sadnesses and being honest with Abba I can say to Him, “Father, I somehow would have liked if things could have been another way; if circumstances had been other than they were;  if I could have behaved differently in these circumstances at that time:  but I put my trust in you and in your wisdom and grace that has brought me to this point with you, today.”

Resentment is palpable: it causes life to drain away and poison the very ground on which we walk and damages those who try to walk close to us. Trust and thankfulness cause life to leak out somehow as well, but to leak out irrepressibly to bless those who walk near to us, and bless others way beyond that smaller circle. By the way, when thankfulness is awakened  in somebody who as yet does not know God in Christ, it can be a powerful evangelist within them.

God bless you all  my fellow believers  as those who share the call of Christ to minister out of our belovedness to the immediate and to the deepest needs of the world.

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

It is not often that I have to close a book because it is so good I cannot read any more of it. It happened today as I read a chapter entitled “Ministry” in “A Spirituality of Living” by Henri Nouwen. Every line seemed to have the capacity to open up an ocean of thinking. It was just too much goodness to take in. It is worth remembering something that I mentioned in a blog a few months ago: Moses had to be hidden from the Lord’s goodness as  He passed by: if he had looked upon that goodness full in the face he could not have borne it; it would have killed him.

Well anyway, I thought I might share one or two sentences about Ministry. It seems as though H.N. as he writes equates ministry with “healing” in one shape or form or another and in  the broadest sense as well. That is probably the best and simplest one word summary to cover all different ministries and ministry in general that anyone can come up with. With that in mind, here are some words to mull over:

“All disciples of Jesus are called to ministry. Ministry is not, first of all, something that we do (although it calls us to do many things).  Ministry is something that we have to trust. If we know we are the beloved, and if we keep forgiving those with whom we form community and celebrate their gifts, we cannot do other than minister…We have to trust that if we are the son or daughter of God power will go out from us and people will be healed… Trust in that healing power. Trust that if we are living as the beloved we will heal people whether or not we are aware of it…” (“A Spirituality of Living pages 44 – 45. Buy the book! It is short, easy to read and full of good stuff!)

I do hope you can believe this. Live as the Beloved and you can forget any angst about God using you and can stop worrying about whether or not you have any effect around you. Hoping this blessed you as much as it blessed me,

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

A few days ago I had another pill added to my mix of medication. I am grateful for the benefit I feel already but I noticed myself straying into the edges of resentment as I announced to my wife, “You know, I was never ill before all of this.”

Within an hour as I was out and about I saw a lady in a wheelchair. However what was as obvious as her wheelchair was her wonderful, blazing-like-the-sun smile, visible from a hundred yards away. I looked at the person pushing her chair and she was smiling warmly. As I walked past them their smile was directed towards me. Whatever it was that was bringing them joy, it was producing so much joy that there was enough to share and to give away.

Well, that got me out of resentment, I can tell you. I suppose that somewhere at the root of their joy was gratitude. As soon as I passed them I encouraged my soul into an attitude of gratitude. There were so many things I could thank God for right there and then.

This morning when I woke feeling the benefit of my new medication but experiencing its side effects too, I started looking around me and could instantly think of a huge list of things for which I was genuinely thankful. I thought too of a prayer I heard Mahalia Jackson say on a recording just before she sang: “Lord we are thankful for the measure of health we have.” I have a far larger measure of health than millions of people, far better health care and am surrounded by love and prayer.

Just saying that an attitude of gratitude is a powerful thing. Try it. After a stuttering start, it may surprise you how all of a sudden it just takes off.

God Bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

I am not sure what the most memorable start to a church service may be for you, but for me it is easy to pinpoint. I was preaching to a congregation of Africans. The prayer right at the start by one of the members began like this: “Lord, we thank you that we are here and we are not dead.” For me it was an eye opener to the situations that many of these dear people had come from, situations in which many of their loved ones were still living,  but it was also a spur to live with gratefulness and to be more aware of the unknown difficulties and memories that ordinary people carry. From that day it bothered me less if some people looked as though they were showing no interest in my preaching. It no longer offended me or irritated me. I just realised from that point on in fresh depth that a lot of people are living with and carrying a difficult story . My worry about whether they appreciate my preaching, is a loveless worry.  Only this morning I heard two ladies standing talking to one another. As I passed them , one was saying to the other, “I mean he is sleeping in shop doorways now…” A son, a brother? I don’t know, but the strain on her face was obvious.  She looked so pale and tired. It was so, so sad to see that strain and quite tragic that anyone in the UK should be sleeping in a doorway.

That prayer from that African Congregation came back to me today as I caught up with the dreadful news from France. Remember today in your prayers those who died and those who grieve;  remember those who were injured and those who  are traumatised by the events, traumatised even to find themselves still alive.  The Prime Minister of France made a chilling remark when he spoke this morning: “France must get used to living with terrorism.” Remember too that as well as in France, there have been incidents in other countries resulting in much death, suffering and grief. Be grateful if you have the breath of life in you. Be grateful if the community you live in is one of relative peace and safety. The veneer of peace is thin in some places. Violence  and things that endanger  life and survival threaten to break through in many countries where people read these blogs from the USA to South Sudan.

We sometimes say almost as a cliche that education is the answer to everything. Well, education is good, but why do we still invest it with god like powers when the last century showed that the most cultured and educated of nations caused the suffering of two world wars and almost annihilated the Jews in Europe?  Many terrorists are university educated. Clever educated people make as much a mess of their lives and muck up the lives of those around them as much as anyone else. The new trust we have is in “dialogue around the table” and political solutions which of course are better than war but in a world so full of destructive ideologies that are beyond the influence of reason, the answer will not be in dialogue or sitting round a table. “Democracy is the answer” … but look  at the problems facing the USA , or  the obvious fact after our own referendum in the UK re Europe that we don’t actually like democracy that much when it goes against what we think is self evidently right and obvious and should be to any decent thinking person. Education and political dialogue are like pea shooters against the irrationality of evil  (which has its source not in reason but in lies and The Father of Lies)  and the reality of human sinfulness. We need help. We cannot save ourselves.

What will it take for the nations to hear the Word of the Lord, “Look to me all ye ends of the earth and be saved,” ? How long will it be until the nations are so aware of their impotence in the face of evil and sinfulness that we bow our knees, lift our eyes to heaven and cry out “Help”?

One more thing; on a day when we are reminded of the sufferings of the world, as I sifted through the usual batch of email and Facebook correspondence about church life and conferences and courses on this and that, I could not help but think that the concerns of the evangelical/charismatic church are too small and narrow as well almost embarrassingly selfish and irrelevant to the world such as it is. It sort of reminded me of the fact that when Lenin and his friends were making their plans for revolution, church leaders were met that very night locked in impassioned debate about clerical dress and hairstyles. Oh of course we think that what we champion is much more a biblical imperative and priority that we need to recover, much more important  than these matters. Is it?  At the risk of offending you, it may be a complete red herring, albeit a popular red-herring in terms of what is really important for the church and for the world. Could you at least be open to considering that as a possibility? God help us not fiddle or jump on bandwagons or soap boxes while the world burns.

God bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

Not very busy today, so with some spare time before my evening meal, I will share something I am chewing over right now. Here goes…

I am just wondering why we have been keen to learn from Jesus model and style for healing, but have not paid Him such regard in terms of His style and methods in other aspects of His ministry, e.g . preaching, teaching, deliverance and prophetic ministry to think of just a few off the top of my head. I think what amazes me is how simple Jesus approach to all ministry was in the gospels. He did not always do things the same way, but that does not mean that any way of doing things will do. We do have the gospels and therefore a record of what Christian ministry not only does but looks like even allowing for the wonderful reality of differing personalities.

At times in my life I have known demonstrable healing and been the recipient of the most astounding prophecies and I hope I will know such things in the present and in the future too. The thing is ,there was nothing dramatic or showy or mind-bendingly crazy and weird about the method on these occasions to detract from the ministry of Jesus by the Holy Spirit through one or more of His friends and servants. In fact I have very little memory of how these things happened just that something real happened in a way that I can only put down to God rather than an in your face and in everybody else’s face very definite style or method of ministry. The effects on me were dramatic, but there was no drama in the delivery of God’s blessing to me.

For me as a pastor I have to care for the good of the sheep. So when it comes to matters such as healing, or prophecy or even just teaching conferences, I have a duty not just to ask if any given ministry is true or false, but also to ask is it wise and helpful, even if it is real. I once withdrew an invitation to someone with a significant healing ministry to come and minister in our congregation because I had seen the way he ministered somewhere else. Perhaps some people were healed in the meeting I attended, though I am not sure if they were despite the claims from the front, but there was a lot of confusion and an unsettling of the flock because of the style and method of ministry which was never explained in any way. If you command a person to get out of their wheelchair several times and they fall flat on the floor, as I saw happening, well it causes unrest. If you walk over the heads of people and walk over pews it causes unrest. Indeed if someone out on the street had hit people as hard on the head as this particular healing evangelist was hitting them in the church then they would have been arrested by the police and rightly so: slightly harder and I am sure I would have suffered concussion! Here is the sad thing though: I believe that person had and still has a genuine ministry of healing and evangelism. Similarly, there are prophetic ministries and ministries of Intercession that as a pastor I cannot commend to the flock of God or let loose on the flock, not because they are false, but because the method and the style gets in the way and can cause damage and difficulty beyond all proportion to any blessing left behind.

Of course some people say that God “offends the mind to reveal the heart.” As a Toronto blessing person I say “Amen” to that, however, that is actually one of the holiest ministry truths I know and to use it as an excuse for needlessly confusing approaches and to legitimate thoughtlessness in ministry by it is to turn a fearfully holy principle into something that loses all its inherent power and integrity; it is to steal a truth for a wrong setting and purpose. When I was prophesied to in tremendous power and accuracy, just like Jesus, someone simply spoke words I could understand, and they amazed me. When I have experienced healing in the past, it was just announced with words. It was all very low key. I guess if we have little power we have to put on a show to convince people or even myself as I minister that something of God is happening – which it may or may not be. If you make Smith Wiggelsworth your model then make sure you have his steeped in the Word biblical thinking and understanding, an equivalent Baptism in the Holy Spirit to his experience, a depth of relationship with God and an understanding of faith as deep as his, a willingness to suffer like him and the non exaggerated statistics that would make even the most cautious pastors or church leaders have to do some serious thinking.

Often ministries cause themselves to have a smaller sphere of influence than they could have because of a stubbornness to do with style. They influence a fringe of likeminded people, and that fringe may even be international, but the sadness is they could have had much wider influence if there was a willingness to learn that method and power are not as intimately related as many would claim. Of course no ministry however genuine and sensitive will be welcomed everywhere. I think my ministry is genuine and I think I am sensitive to people and situations, though ultimately God alone knows, but as Morag reminded me a few days ago, I have had invitations to speak withdrawn over the years. It has not happened often, but it has happened. That does not bother me, for me. I understand the way it is when you have a leadership or pastoral responsibility for a gathering or a congregation.

So an appeal to all who minister and to all who wish their leader, minister, pastor would extend an invitation or advertise a ministry, a conference, a speaker visiting town that you happen to like: Please don’t defend styles that have no backing in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the ministry of Jesus. Please don’t appeal to Jesus using spit in healing. As I said in a blog a few months back, that would have made sense to anyone Jesus ministered healing to in His day as spittle was believed to have healing properties. What He did was not weird in the slightest degree. It should not be used as the source text from which to preach sermons pleading for people to accept a style that makes no sense on any level. Many of the things that have been “done” to me over the years for my healing have nothing to do with the healing I was seeking. Many of the prophetic antics that I have been subjected to because the prophet must do it a particular way, have had nothing whatsoever to do with a Word from God that they were genuinely seeking to give to me, but were a distraction and even detracted from the Word and drew 99% of my attention and everyone else’s attention to the prophet and away from God.

So, the Holy Spirit gifted, filled with the Spirit and open to the Spirit pastor knows there is more to consider than whether a ministry is true or false, though it is a good thing to try and discern that first of all! Pastors’ gifting and the calling from God for which they are answerable to Him, means they think carefully about how the flock’s wellbeing and peace and safety will be affected by things. A pastor should know the flock needs fresh pasture and they should lead the flock into new places in God, but they also go ahead of where they are seeking to take the sheep, in order to make sure there is nothing in the grass that could cause hurt or harm to the sheep who, just like Jesus does,  they know by name. It is a shepherd’s right use of the rod to check the grass for hidden poisonous weeds or snakes: better to take the flock somewhere else in the search for new pasture if there is just too much of that around to deal with swiftly and simply, even if there is good grass too. Wounded and harmed sheep, or sheep that are fleeced financially under some guise that they are being set free from the poverty spirit are too high a sacrifice for the odd sheep or a couple of odd sheep being blessed by a more than odd ministry. It is a pastor’s or a leader’s call to make.

If you are a pastor or a leader or both you will agree. If you don’t agree and see this as resistance to the Holy Spirit then don’t become a pastor or a leader but don’t be surprised either if your ministry whatever sphere it may be in is resisted and has doors shut against it, when with a bit of humility and common sense  more doors would have opened to you and your ministry and could yet do so. I am saying this because I care as much about ministries not being curtailed but being released to spread as widely as they can possibly go under God, as I do that these ministries bless the flock of God, lost and found.

Anyway, it is tea-time. Time for a different type of chewing…

God bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

I am thinking today of someone who cheers me up every time I meet him.There is genuine warmth in his eyes, his humour is quick, he is very ready to encourage and express his good hopes for my future while showing genuine sadness at my health issues. I get the impression that he rejoices in me simply being Kenny and  most definitely feel that he makes no demands on me as a minister or as a person. Here’s the thing though: he doesn’t come to church very often. That does not bother me as much as it  bothers some. I just think that given his situation and life story it is a miracle that he manages to come very occasionally and that faith is there at all.

In short, to pick up a thought from the opening paragraph, he makes no demands on me, I make no demands on him. We receive what one another can offer with gladness and do not get frustrated about what is not offered and not given.

The reason I was thinking of him today was that I read in a book today that community, whether it is two or three or more, happens in a healthy way when we come together in forgiveness and celebration of one another.

Why “forgiveness”? Well, any one of us in whom the Spirit of God dwells can reflect something of the Lord’s love and care for one another, but we cannot be everything we need the Lord to be to one another; we need to forgive one another that none of us can completely satisfy each others every need and longing, or bring healing in the depth we need to one another at every place where we may be broken.

What about “celebration” the second key to community? Well, once we have forgiven one another for not being God, we are set free to celebrate one another with gladness and thankfulness for who we can be to one another and what we can bring and offer. I think it was Henri Nouwen who said that to celebrate one another is much more than to celebrate one another’s gifts: you can play the piano well, sing beautifully etc. To celebrate someone is to receive them thankfully in their humanity, with their gifts but also with their limitations. It is to be able to receive the  unique reflection of the love of God we are able to be to one another. In short, it  is to celebrate one another as the beloved of God.

So two or three questions:

Is there anyone you can celebrate today to whom you have been showing frustration, rage or even violence? Violence  is how far things can go when we cannot accept that another loves us with a reflection of God’s love; I have been physically attacked by believers, Christian friends over the years on two or three occasions because of their needs which I cannot meet.

Are you placing a demand on someone as a test of their love, or can you accept that at this stage of their lives and experience of salvation they are offering the most they can? You may angrily want to say,  “they are most definitely not trying as hard as they could” but my experience as a pastor would say that is not as often the case as we like to assert. Given the whole story “he” or “she” is probably being all they can be and bringing all they can bring more so than you may have the grace to accept.  You may have to either accept that or walk away, but don’t keep demanding or you will damage “him” or “her” as well as causing inner turmoils  and sadness to yourself. Demanding  or clinging won’t lead to anything but heartache; if you don’t walk away, they will, sooner or later “even after 30 years of marriage…”  ( A phrase I believe I heard prophetically  for someone to hear and to heed.)

Do you need to forgive your church family for not meeting all your needs? Is it time to give up resentment or frustration about church and celebrate your brothers and sisters in the Lord. If you do that, you will probably find that the negative things you thought the church thought about you were not actually their thoughts at all!

One final thought: praying to The Father in the hidden place for “more” of the release of His good purposes for one of His children yields much better fruit than demanding “more” from that same person  face to face.

I hope this gives you something to chew over and that the chewing releases something of spiritual and/or  relational nutritional value. Let’s give and receive the love of God as we are able at this point in time by the grace of Christ and create forgiving, accepting, non demanding  friendships, fellowships and communities of celebration as far as it depends on each of us.

God Bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

Empathy: Course 101: Without this you cannot go on to take part in the courses on the ministry of The Apostle, The Prophet, The Evangelist, The Pastor or The Teacher: there would be no point; in fact you would be a danger in any of these ministries; you may be psychopathic.

God Bless

Kenny

I guess he should have known not to stray into theology when debating with  The Revd. Dr. Ian Paisley MP. However, he clearly thought his doctrine was something any follower of Jesus could not possibly object to. Ian Paisley was in full combative abusive (not necessarily commendable) mode, when “Sunny Jim” Callaghan interrupted him and said, “Come, come Dr. Paisley, we are all children of God.” It was an early example of PC theology being laid out for the church by the PM or soon to be PM, I can’t remember which. Unsurprisingly Rev.I.P. MP did not bow to PC theology from the PM, but immediately roared at him, “We are not! We are children of wrath!” quoting chapter and verse from Ephesians. Actually the MP was right and the PM was biblically wrong, though to say so today is even more against PC thought  than it was then and would probably get a few tut tuts in any religious gathering backed up by a claim as to what Jesus said, ignoring or butchering what He actually said. Unless there is a Holy Spirit revival there will come a day when “We are not all children of God” preaching will be outlawed (literally) and dubbed as racist, intolerant and loveless or at the very least an old embarrassing doctrine that decent progressive type Christians try and underplay or keep under wraps and not mention along with other unmentionables such as being washed in the blood of the lamb.

The thing is that Jesus is too convenient a coat-stand for many different coats in a PC world. Hippies saw him as a hippy; he wasn’t.  Activists see Him as an activist; he isn’t.  Yuppies from Yuppy  friendly churches in Britain saw  Him as a yuppie – indeed I am not sure He has ever escaped from these clothes that He seems to have been made to wear since the Thatcher years and Blair years; He is apparently into helping His people nowadays to be upwardly mobile “beautiful” people, the envy of the world,  rather than helping them to bear being considered the scum of the earth who along with Him are hated because we testify of this world, P.C. and non P.C , that its deeds are evil.

It is so strange that in our own day, many on the religious right of America seem to see Jesus as someone who would support gun ownership and putting up walls to keep out Mexicans, who wants them to vote for a presidential candidate that owns casinos, who applauds all the actions of the Israeli government even when they are acting wrongly and in a morally indefensible way. Personally I think our attitude to Israel should be the same as God’s: love them, tell them when they are wrong and want them to turn to Christ, the only Saviour of Jew and Gentile. On the other hand , this side of the pond, members of the liberal elite in Britain  and for that matter in Europe seem to think it is beyond question that Jesus (the myth or the decent tolerant man, not Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, God made flesh crucified, risen and coming again to judge all the living and all the dead)  shares their outlook on moral issues of the current century, somehow seeing Him as an avid supporter of same sex “marriage” and of children having two parents of the same “gender” (which is now becoming a word with an altered accepted meaning, just like “marriage”).  There seems to be no end to the insanity of the PC world in Britain and in Europe. Of course insane folk can often think they are perfectly sane;  it can be very hard for them to conceive let alone believe otherwise. Is it not an astonishing thing that Andy Murray is allowed to say that being a parent helps his tennis and for his remarks to be reported with warmth in the press, but Andrea Leadsom is more or less dismissed as an old fashioned ridiculous dragon for saying that being a parent would give her an advantage as a PM ? It may not be the best thing to say along with some other not very sensible things she said, but it does not deserve scorn  or to be invested with the undertone of being immoral or unfair for a parent to say that she understands the needs, fears hopes of parents better than someone who has not been a parent. I can see a more obvious link between being a parent helping you to understand parents better than I can between being a parent and winning Wimbledon! It may not be nice of her to have said that of herself in relation to an adversary for the leadership of the Conservative Party and the keys to No. 10, for the pain of childlessness can be very real, but it was not completely illogical or old fashioned to say it.

Strange then that in America a gun toting Jesus seems to be seen as the authentic one by many though thankfully not all, while here in Britain He is one of the liberal elite ignoring, ridiculing, or  even hateful  of anything that is either traditional or just sheer common sense and logic or, perish the thought, shows the influence of a Christian heritage.  As I say, “Jesus” is just too convenient a coat stand for just about every coat  and cause to be hung upon.

Well, that is the political commentator bit over. It is a passing interest, so dont bother picking me up on it as I will not fight back! On to other things now. What is worrying me more than anything I have said so far in this blog  about the whole issue of PC is the  PC influence that modern worship songs and song writers have on the church. Preachers may not like to admit it but probably more people take their theology from the most popular current Christian songs or Christian artistes  rather than from expository sermons, apart from certain smallish reformed circles. Worship leaders have a great responsibility therefore to see that they are presenting Christian truth and not being yet another group of people who hang their own ideas on a too convenient Jesus who is used to staying silent and opening not his mouth while being made to wear clothes that mock Him.

That is why I was delighted (huge understatement) to listen today to a CD, or is it an EP(?) by Olivia Comley called “Favourite.” I almost sighed with relief and let out a shout of joy as I listened to such beauty and truth! Here was someone who is clearly sure of the love of God but not at the expense of the doctrine of salvation and the power of the cross to make “a sinner” “a son.” Why do I sigh with relief? Well, slowly in the evangelical world and even more so in the charismatic world there is so much emphasis on how beautiful we are in the eyes of God that the truth that we are rebel sinners who needed to be saved and set free by the shed blood of Jesus Christ is receding into the background. We are now wounded people only; we like to keep a bit quieter about the “s” word; our problem is our poor self-image rather than our sin; we simply need to see our beauty rather than repent and be saved and see our sin and our beauty through the the eyes of a love that is perfect, and specifically perfect  in sheer undeserved mercy . Well, as I listened to Olivia’s songs of worship  I was listening to someone who has seen the beauty of the Lord’s love and yes, the beauty that divine love sees in us, however in her songs sin is seen as a non-fudged reality from which Jesus alone can save us and free us by the grace of the God who is perfect in mercy.

Oh I know what I am about to say is not PC even in the church and may cause a few of you, especially those of a generation who don’t even know who Sunny Jim was  to roll your eyes: I  long to hear more songs from up and coming song writers in Scotland, or anywhere for that matter, that honour the power of the cross of Jesus to save us and bring us into freedom. Song writers, give us in your  wonderfully varied styles an opportunity to sing of where and how we found freedom and life! I have been refreshed today to hear a tremendously gifted song writer and beautiful singer and excellent musician honouring the blood of the cross who  has also clearly seen and stood in the beauty of the Lord and who sings about that beauty in a beautiful way! Thank you Olivia…and the rest of you, get hold of her EP/CD “Favourite.” If you are still at CLAN in Largs, then get it there. It will be £5 well spent! Pray for song writers and worship leaders and those who minister by singing to people  (that last category has been almost outlawed in PC churches, by the way): they carry an awesome responsibility to be witnesses to the truth of Jesus Christ, rather than ride the crest of a PC church wave or PC world wave. How wonderful it was for me today as I listened to Olivia to be enabled to see Jesus in His own “chosen and designed by the Father  clothes” of humility and suffering, triumph and victory.

God Bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

I have been consistently overdoing things a bit…tired; so just the briefest of blogs. I have noticed over the last couple of days that the joy of the Lord and even His delight and laughter seem to be very present when I consider my future and look forward to what is coming rather than when I look back.  His Spirit within me seems to leap for joy as I allow myself to think on the way to a whole myriad of unknowns, such as what kind of curtains will we have in our new house or pondering the shape of any future ministry. Actually at the moment He seems to be happier when I am thinking about curtains etc. than ministry! I guess He is wise and knows the shape of future ministry might take longer to bring together at the right rate and pace for what my health is like now whatever it may be like  in time to come, after we have settled in our new home, which is His gift to us which He wants us to receive and enjoy.

If you find that good things or bad things from the past seem to hog your attention and mesmerise your attention and focus, I pray that the Lord who gives His  people a future and a hope would break the spell. That’s it for today.

God Bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

It is happening less and less, but it still pokes its head up now and then as I retire early  from parish ministry on the basis of ill health:  the feeling of “What have I actually accomplished?” in the course of life and ministry. Please don’t rush to reassure me. It is a passing problem and thought! However today here is another thought I had that greatly strengthened me:I found myself mulling over the words of Jesus about the ministry of John the Baptist. He said that John had restored all things that he was the Elijah who was to precede the Christ. The interesting thing is that John himself said that he was not Elijah. At the end of his life he needed to know that his ministry had not been a waste of time pointing in the wrong direction. He was far from thinking he had restored all things.

Has it ever crossed your mind that Jesus’ estimation of you and what you do  is much more generous than your verdict on your own life, your own ministry? Perhaps you have been ministering this very day and wonder about the worth of what you have done today or indeed over the years. It may well just be that Jesus looks and thinks that you have done “all” in one way or another. That verdict may seem as over the top as what Jesus said about a prophet whose life was ended by some of the very powers he had prophesied would fall.

I remember an icebreaker at a meeting: we were all asked to share with the person sitting next to us what helps us get up and going on those days when we don’t feel like getting up and going. My answer was and remains this: “I get up because I know there is someone who loves me more than I have yet learned to love myself and who thinks more highly of me than I think of myself.”

If you have got faith to ask Him, why not ask Jesus to help you see who you are and what you do through His eyes. I posted a blog on my thoughts and appreciation of the life and ministry of Rev. Jim Graham a few days ago. The first time I met him was when he came north to preach and teach ad the first of several conferences in Thurso. I remember him saying to me after a few days among us, “Kenny, there are remarkable things happening; miracles are happening in this congregation.” He pointed out realities he had encountered of changed and changing lives through  speaking with people. Much of what  he mentioned, I had not even noticed. Ministry can be tough and sometimes we are so close to the things that are tough or discouraging that we can get a slightly jaundiced view of the way things really are: our outlook on others and ourselves can become jaded. I remember Jim’s comments to this day; the generosity of what he said seems a mark of true Christlikeness. It would be good for all of us to listen for Christ’s tone of generosity and to speak in that tone to one another.

God Bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

I was out on my recently acquired electric bike today. I love it! My previous bike was proving too much for my lungs. With this one I can overtake Lycra clad exhausted riders and runners without expending very much energy at all. It is particularly delicious to glide past them on hills, without a bead of perspiration on my forehead! This thing can fair whiz along! Sometimes its speed catches me out. I have nearly ended up in the canal once or twice. However, I am getting the hang of it now.

I am faced with the choice of writing about a couple of reactions to me on my bike. The first reaction I could write a blog about was from a lady I passed who could not hear my friendly  but persistent  bicycle bell, as her ears were stuffed with earphones and her IPod was turned up loud. When I rode past, well my next fifty or a hundred yards  were accompanied by her rather choice language! I could blog about that. In fact it would make a very good black and foreboding Presbyterian blog, full or warning abut the danger of being deaf to what we really need to hear. Well, true as that may be, that guilt inducing blog can wait; there are enough of them around…

It is rather another reaction  to my bike that is uppermost in my mind. I passed a man who was really struggling on his bike. As I went past and he heard the gentle hum of my bike motor, he said, “That’s cheating!” I could not be bothered dismounting  my bike to dismount him from his own bike to talk to him about the ins and outs of Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis and how it was just envy  on his part because he wanted an electric bike himself, but I started thinking about his comment. It is a sort of Scottish way of thinking that anything that makes a task easier must be frowned upon! There is a sort of strain of thought in Scottish spirituality that exalts what is hard, and difficult as being more likely to be the right thing for us, the will of God for us, and conversely encourages us to push away anything that might make for a pleasanter or easier life journey at any particular moment.

I just felt quite strongly as though there are some who will read this blog who need to hear from the Lord, “Don’t be afraid to receive what will help you.” It might be the offer of a financial gift that you feel bad about accepting; it might be that you are reluctant to start a course of medication, especially if it is medication for depression or anxiety; it may be an offer of practical help from someone, an offer that you feel like rejecting as you don’t want to be an inconvenience; it may be that you need  a holiday, that  you know a holiday would really help you  and you saw one in a travel agent’s window today but immediately felt  you should not be spending money on yourself in a world where many have a lot less than you.

God the Holy Spirit amongst other blessings, wants to be your Helper, to help you carry whatever it is you may be struggling with. There is a verse in the Old Testament that says, “The Spirit of the Lord clothed Himself with Gideon.” Don’t push away The Helper today because of the clothes with which or with whom He has chosen to clothe Himself in order to draw near to you and bless you.

God  bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

I think that part of what is happening through these blogs is that it affords me an opportunity to keep things simple! I believe that following Jesus and being His disciple is very simple. The only problem is making the choice for the Jesus Way! That way conflicts with where sin would want to take us. It conflicts too with the world’s view of what makes a person important or worthwhile. The Jesus Way also conflicts with what the church at times throughout her history has seemed to value and treasure and get excited about and motivated by. What I saw today though was that the Jesus Way conflicts with those who take themselves too seriously! How much more harmony could there be in families and in church families if folk did not take themselves so seriously?

The Jesus Way is so simple a child can grasp it. Indeed we need to be childlike – not childish –  in order to walk His way. I think in my heart I am so committed to how simple it all is that I don’t really want to be part of any expression of Christianity that is not simply about helping people live the Jesus Life and walk the Jesus Way. Anything beyond that is not for me whoever it may be for. Anything beyond that may indeed be right, but right for others, not for me or those I feel called to minister to whether in person or through writing this blog.

I had a dream last night about an encounter with someone who I have known for many years and who has achieved wonderful things in terms of ministry. In the dream they simply walked past me and sort of contemptuously called me “Boy” as they themselves got into a lift to go up to a higher level. It was as though what I was saying and what I encourage people to lay hold of in terms of Christian experience, commitment, security, discipleship  and service was too simple, too naive in their estimation.

I guess some people who perhaps started to read my blogs will have stopped by now,  because they are not weighty enough to satisfy them and don’t seem terribly concerned about being up to the minute in terms of current ideas floating around the Christian scene. That is ok.  It causes me no offence, neither does it make me feel I should change my approach to make the appeal of the blog broader. For many years when people have asked me what my ministry is I have  usually replied “ Well, I don’t know really. I just show up and chat about God; that’s about it really.”  I believe Jesus likes it when I keep things simple for me and for those my ministry is meant to touch. My simplicity blesses Him  too, though I am sure other things bless Him  through others just as simplicity blesses Him through me.

Remember I told you in a blog that I use my spiritual imagination helped by the Holy Spirit to go into a cellar to meet with Jesus? He is always sitting there and I simply come before Him and see what He says or does or shows me. I went into the cellar today to meet with Him. The contemptuous and condescending “boy” dismissal was not in my mind as far as I know. This is what Jesus did: He produced a child’s Xylophone. It reminded me of one that I think belonged to my much loved cousins when they were younger; it had brightly coloured metal keys and it did not sound tremendous but was fun to play. Jesus seemed to invite me to play something simple to him on it, and when I did, He laughed with great joy!

I know there will be some who read this that are sure the music of Bach and Bethel will ring throughout  heaven. Perhaps it will, for both are tremendously beautiful and inspiring in their different ways, and such beauty does glorify God. I wonder though if heaven will also ring with the tinny plink plonk sounds of coloured xylophones and the laughter of Christ as God’s  children, His cherished boys and girls sing simple songs of joy and love from their hearts.

May these thoughts, this chat,  bless you.

Kenny

“Play something simple for me…”

I found out from my daughter last night,  that Rev. Jm Graham, the former senior pastor of Goldhill Baptist Church has passed away. So many people in so many places will have heard that news with sadness mixed with a profound and heartfelt thankfulness for Jim and his ministry. I have reposted in this blog my thoughts that I expressed when I first heard he was ill with one or two slight alterations.

“I am so thankful for Jim’s influence and the influence of his ministry upon my life personally as well as to the church in general. I am remembering today times when he used to come up North to Thurso to speak at conferences. Whatever else people may remember from these days I remember being stuck to my seat by the presence of God that attended Jim’s ministry to the extent that I could not get up to close a meeting, and Jim, the visiting speaker, had to do that instead of the host!

Jim was one of these people that I always think of with a smile but also one of these people who intrigues me still even after the sad news of his passing. His ministry among us in Thurso was so powerful and blessed. Why?

I can think of 2 or 3 reasons, which I want to share with you briefly. Whether you are a pastor, leader or not, I think they are lessons which could hep us all to carry the presence and fragrance of Jesus in the way that I think of when I think with thankfulness of Jim today.

1 – He was someone who honoured the Word of God as the Word of God. One of the things he often said when teaching something that he knew might be difficult to receive was, “I did not write this stuff. I am only telling you what it says!” God honours above all things His Name and HIs Word according to the Psalms, and He blesses the man who trembles at His word, who reveres His word. A word for preachers and teachers;  have you forgotten to tremble before the word of the Lord and are you seeking to earnestly and correctly divide the word of truth for your listeners? A word too for those of you who don’t preach; are you carrying something in your heart each day from the bible ,seeking to live it out? That will help give your day direction and make you aware when opportunities to live out what you have read come along.

2 – Jim was someone open to the Hoy Spirit. So often it is the case that some preachers and teachers are open to the Word, while others are open to the Spirit. In my experience I am not sure I have ever met anyone who honoured both in equal measure better than Jim Graham. I recall a time when he prayed for me personally, Things were going well in the church, in fact we were the fastest growing congregation in the Church of Scotland. However things were not going well with me. I had worked myself to a place of exhaustion and was not at rest in the Father’s love. For years I had carried about a feeling of not being good enough or successful enough. Over these years I used to have a recurring dream of looking into the picture gallery of heaven. I would see portraits of those who had achieved great things for God. I would wake up distressed, longing that there was a place in God’s picture gallery for me. Jim, not knowing about this recurring dream started to pray for me. He stopped after a moment and said, “Kenny, I don’t understand this but God is saying there is a place in his picture gallery for you.” I was stunned and started to cry gently. I said, “Jim, are you just making that up?” He became quite serious at that point and said, “Kenny, I don’t make this stuff up. This is what God wants you to know.” That moment became the start of a journey which a month or two later led me to find rest in the Father’s love, a love that is not there because of my achievements but because, I, Kenny am simply loved.

A question to us all based on that  personal experience: Are you open to hunches given by the Holy Spirit. Follow through that hunch today to say something, to do something that inexplicably you find laid on your heart, so long as it passes the tests of being encouraging, strengthening and comforting. By the way if you are particularly passionate about truth, something being true is not the go-ahead to say it in an unacceptable way. Ask also will it help and is it kind? That may not alter the truth but it may alter the way you which you say it. Jim simply shone with the kindness of God.

3 – Jim had a ministry in encouraging the church. It is easy to see the faults in any congregation. That usually takes no prophetic ability or insight of the Spirit. In fact as Jack deere said once at CLAN gathering, always seeing what is wrong with a person or a church, does not mean you have a prophetic ministry, but it may mean you have a psychological disorder that requires treatment! It takes the Spirit of God and a loving heart to see what is good and to encourage it. Jim was great at that. He made me personally feel as though he had been waiting all my life to meet me, which he made everyone  he met feel. But he also talked about good things about the church. In these days there is a lot of cynicism about the church, which seem to come as a mix of bright new ideas but a rather scathing and sarcastic and judgmental  tone towards the church as it is at the moment. Those whom God significantly uses harness more than the frustration of disaffected people. People like John Wimber and Jim Graham had a love for the church, not blind to the faults of any situation but very keen to encourage the good.

4 – I add this one thought today, which I cannot believe I left out first time round: Jim was just so full of the love and compassion of Christ. He was simply one of the most loving people I have met in the course of my life. One can champion the Word or the Spirit or both, but without this we are nothing.

Paul had the temerity to say on one occasion, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” These words are applicable to my memories of Jim. I hope that the brief thoughts I have share about someone you may never have met will give you fodder for thought and for life this day.”

Click here to read the sad yet inspirational announcement  from Jim’s family.

God bless

Kenny

I thought quite early on that the claim that there were WMD in large numbers in Iraq which could be easily deployed within 45 minutes was a myth.  That seems to have been confirmed in the Chilcot report which makes pretty uncomfortable reading for the Prime Minister and the Government at the time of the Iraq war. I felt a sadness that Robin Cook and Charles Kennedy were not around for its publication.

I believe that George Bush and Tony Blair changed the world and its nations as we knew it to the world as it now is and the tragedies  its nations are experiencing in terms of  displaced peoples and lack of peace and security.  I believe that is fact, just to underscore the point. Only they ultimately know whether they were following facts or knowingly following something that was less than fact for less  then honourable motives.

What interested me tonight on the 6 0’clock news was hearing the reporter John Simpson say  that he felt that the Iraq war and its now discredited justification has had a lasting effect. By that he meant not just what is happening in Iraq and surrounding nations, not just the spread of terrorism to nations far beyond that region, but a cynicism as to what governments and leaders and experts tell us. He believes that is partly what lay behind the Brexit vote. He may be right or wrong in his opinions about the Referendum vote, however I don’t think this is simply opinion: people do not trust leaders or governments, or for that matter experts any more. Perhaps that is the cynical aftermath of the decision Blair made to back Bush “whatever.”

Truth was the first casualty of the war, and perhaps has never recovered the place it should have in our national life or in the government or  political leadership of our nation. Spin, myth, fear, exaggeration and lie are common place, and we know it.  How this must hamper MP’s and MSP’s who possess integrity and principle. Of course the same type of thing , happened long before Bush and Blair. I am not being political in the narrow sense here in this blog. I have voted in various ways over the years and will continue to do so. Frankly I cannot understand those who always vote the same way, regardless or “whatever,” to borrow Blair’s most tragic word. Long before Blair and Bush became unlikely pals,  I remember thinking “Was the Belgrano turning?” If you are too young to understand that reference, Google it, to save me making this blog too long to fit its title.

Well, my blogs are about faith matters. So what is there to learn from this? Hugh Black used to say,”I encourage you to be a realist.” Mature faith is one that can keep pace with an expanding body of facts encountered in life. I think Henry Nouwen said that about faith or about the process towards maturity in general. The faith in Christ crucified that was awakened in me 45 years ago or thereabouts has had to keep pace with the facts of death of loved ones, world poverty, seeing the hell of the suffering of mental illness in others, hearing of the child abuse of a large number of people, the ordinary problems and strains of being alive for my 58 years and now my own ill health and early retirement and the struggle to come to terms with that, which of course is nothing  if not less than that compared with earlier facts mentioned in this long sentence.

Sometimes when I listen to folk expounding what they think about spiritual things, there seems to be a commitment to a theology or reasoning that may be based on well meaning but ultimately non mature faith or just general immaturity, which treats factual truth as an enemy to be suppressed, ignored or even scorned. Sadly some of the current Christian Apologetics scene can seem like this too but by no means all of it. Too often though it  seems to me to be based on catching out an opponent in a debate rather than addressing any facts or claimed facts an opponent may have presented. Looking merely “smart” rarely looks good. It is more for adolescent debating halls. I am embarrassed looking back, how smart I thought I was as a teenager and how humorous I thought I was in making my points and rubbishing others.  Well, as I say, sometimes I feel the same listening to some apologetic type presentations; sad and embarrassing jingoism for the benefit of the faithful but worried and insecure  which rarely causes anything but anger or returned scorn beyond that narrow circle; it is the law of sowing and reaping at work. If my faith does not keep pace with facts  as I meet them, as they actually exist,  we will probably wreak destruction upon ourselves or others. Now of course we need to remember that not everything presented as fact is fact as the Chilcot report makes clear. However many facts are facts, and faith needs to live with them.

Our faith is actually based on true facts: the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Don’t use faith to clobber any type of fact  old or newly discovered that is part of the reality of life. If your faith survives such an approach, it won’t commend itself to others who perhaps more than we realise are desperately looking for something trustworthy to base their lives on that fits how they are experiencing life in fact and not in myth or theory.

God bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

Well, today there were lots of thoughts buzzing around my head. At first that pleased me then it concerned me. Is it the Holy Spirit, or is it steroids? This is quite often my dilemma at the moment, as you will have picked up from previous blogs. Actually it could be both, as I discovered during a short blast of steroids before this longer course that they did make it easier to sense the presence of God and even to pray and get hold of prophetic insight! That is ammunition being put in the Cessationists’ hands by a Charismatic…it’s nice to be kind.

However I don’t like the thought or feeling of medication having a control over me beyond curtailing what is wrong with my lungs. Today that thought led to a whole batch of other concerned thoughts. From wondering if I could get through to the truth of God while on medication, I started to feel concerned about others being able to access God. What about those with some sort of mental illness? What about those who can’t pay to go to somewhere where the Spirit of God is really moving, the latest evangelical or charismatic show? What about those who unlike myself in my upbringing have never experienced what love is, how can they understand let alone receive the love of God and whatever blessings that love would give to them?

Just as my thoughts were running away with me, I started to think of the phrase, “Eternal love sees a way.” These words brought rest to my soul, though they also opened  up even more tangents which my mind clamoured to wander! It relieved the “Steroids or Spirit” panic. It brought rest to my concerns for others. Of course God’s love finds ways of breaking through any disadvantage or difficulty.

I found that simple thought released prayers for some situations that were bothering me, for people that I care about: “Thank you Father that your love sees and can find a way through to their hearts, to their situations.” Perhaps it is just being a pastor too long; perhaps it is the current driven sounding emphasis in church circles about finding out our ministries and our giftings and using them for the church’s mission in the world; perhaps it is neurosis:  however it got there, there is an overdeveloped sense of responsibility that I sometimes become aware of bubbling away in me, and it deprives me of rest and peace. How fruitless! God is God. HIs love for his children was there before any of us were ever born, before we achieved anything, before anyone had advantage or disadvantage, before things went well for us or things damaged us, before sin, before steroid medication, the love of God has known has been set upon you and I, has delighted in His sons and daughters from forever to forever. How foolish to think anything can stop His irresistible grace getting through to His children somehow. Which is greater; the love of God or my capacity to muck up life or anything or anyone’s capacity to muck up life? That brought rest to my soul for me and to my worries for others. May it bring rest to your soul too, and rest concerning those you love and care about.

Here is the same thought in a poem that came to me today, if it is worthy of being called a poem. I apologise it is in rhyme once again. I prefer to write in other ways.  At the moment however, I can’t seem to write a poem in any other way! It is driving me up the wall… Aaargh!! This too will pass…. what a relief that will be! Anyway here it is. If it helps anyone, then praise God; if it just helps me, then be thankful with me. It’s another for the “Steroid Collection” of poems, of which there are a slowly growing number…

God bless you this day and always with an awareness of your eternal belovedness.
Kenny

The Steroid Collection: number 3

My hands are fidgeting
My thoughts are flitting
Too many signals, too much light,
too many horses to jump on and ride…
Is my bed of thoughts this day steroid sprung?
Is it the caffeine, the sun or The Son?
Life emerging or mere straw snatching?
What direction is this, sinking or rising

This calms all, and brings a settling,
“I have loved you with love everlasting.”

Copyright, K.S. Borthwick

I don’t know if you have found time to do what I suggested yesterday? I suggested you read 2nd. Timothy. Whether you have or have not, whether you want to do that or don’t get round to it in the near future,  it is a couple of phrases from there that are running through my mind today. One makes me say, “How can you say that Paul?” The other makes me say, “Did you really need to say that Paul?”

The “how can you say that” phrase is this: “I thank God, whom I serve…with a clear conscience.”  (2 Timothy Chapter 1 verse 3.) Think of Paul’s history; the unjust and cruel maltreatment and imprisonment  of Christians. Probably that involved separating distraught parents from  terrified, sobbing and screaming children. Paul has already described himself in his first  letter to Timothy as one who had been a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, and yet he says here in this second letter that he has a clear conscience! Was he lying? Was he making light of his past sins? I don’t believe either of these explanations  to be the case.  Rather, this is the power of the blood of Christ shed for us. It not only cleanses us from the guilty verdict our sins merit, but can actually bring us inner peace of conscience too that some people, even those closest to us in our circle of family and friends, would perhaps tell us we should never be allowed to find.

One of the commonest ploys of the enemy of our souls is to bring accusation against us. Martin Luther, one of the leading figures of the Reformation had a dream in which Satan came to him with a list of his sins. Luther asked Satan if that was all his sins only to be confronted with yet another list, and another , and another, until eventually Satan said that this was indeed the complete record of Luther’s sins to date.  Clearly all of this was an attempt to put him off the purpose for which he had been raised up by God, to bear witness to the glorious truth of Salvation by grace through faith, rather than by works, including any religious works that we do or others say they need to do for us…at a price of course. However, Luther said to the enemy in his dream, “You can take a pen and write over every page, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses from all sin.’ ”

Do some of you need to face your fierce accuser today with confidence in the cross of Christ and what the Word of God declares about the power of what happened there to set us free?  Here is yet another hymn that I simply love, love, love! It was written by John Newton who also had done such degrading things to other human beings and indeed had degrading things done to him though his involvement in the salve trade that some would say meant he should never have been allowed to find rest of soul. Read his hymn; it may help some of you today.

Approach my soul the mercy seat
Where Jesus answers prayer;
There humbly fall before His feet,
For none can perish there.

Thy promise is my only plea,
With this I venture nigh;
Thou callest burdened souls to Thee,
And such, O Lord, am I.

Bowed down beneath a load of sin,
By Satan sorely pressed,
By war without and fears within,
I come to Thee for rest.

Be Thou my Shield and hiding Place,
That, sheltered by Thy side,
I may my fierce accuser face,
And tell him Thou hast died!

O wondrous love! to bleed and die,
To bear the cross and shame,
That guilty sinners, such as I,
Might plead Thy gracious Name.

“Poor tempest-tossèd soul, be still;
My promised grace receive”;
’Tis Jesus speaks—I must, I will,
I can, I do believe.”

Well, moving on: the “did you really need to say that Paul” phrase is this: “Remember Jesus Christ…” (2 Timothy 1 verse 8.) Could it really be necessary to say such a thing to a Christian, even more so to a young and emerging Christian leader like Timothy? Yes!  After all, as I said a few blogs ago, in the 3rd. Chapter of Revelation we are presented with the picture of a church where everything seemed to be going well.. and yet Jesus is pictured standing outside its door knocking and saying, “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears me and opens the door I will come in…” It is possible to lose sight of Jesus  when things are going well. In Timothy the context seems to be to “Remember Jesus Christ” in times of impending suffering and trial. It is possible in times of trial to get so filled with fear or anxiety or nervousness that we need to hear this simple strengthening word, “Remember Jesus Christ.”

I guess I don’t really need to unpack that. Is the Holy Spirit through this blog wanting to comfort or to challenge some of us  with this simple phrase? “Remember Jesus Christ.” Nothing could be finer or better for your soul than to do that when you stop reading.

God bless you

Kenny

My time in Wester Hailes has been inspirational to me. I have come to see that often some of the best Kingdom of God work is happening in what we tend to call Priority Area situations in Scotland. From time to time there are gatherings at which ministers and members from these types of parishes meet together for mutual encouragement, and mutual encouragement happens every time these gatherings happen. There is no jealousy or insecurity which one can often experience when minsters gather together but a genuine rejoicing with one another in every encouraging story shared as well as a sharing  in some of the pain and challenges and disappointments of ministering in such places. The stories are wonderful and are told warts and all without charismatic or  “evangelastic” exaggeration  or a liberal peppering of facts with the overuse of the word “Awesome!!” Yet many of the stories truly deserve that word to be attached to them. It is truly inspirational to hear of what extraordinary ordinary people can do for the blessing of others in their community in far from enviable situations when others might just sit back and do nothing.

Well, if Wester Hailes has been inspirational for me, this blogging thing is becoming so. You have amazed me with some of your responses and stories which confirm what I am learning myself that there are truths about God that are best learned in situations which are far from enviable. I find an absence of self pity and a gratefulness toward God that moves me in responses you have sent to me. Some of you have written to me from a background of emotional pain or turmoil, some from a place of physical suffering and disability, some from situations of being more or less housebound. When you do, I feel a bit overawed, and I want you to know that as I read what you share I feel as though I am standing on some of the holiest ground I have ever stood upon in 34 years of ordained ministry.

When I think of my own life of Christian learning, I see it has been constructed a bit like the letters of Paul. He tends to put most of his doctrine into the first half of his letters and then along comes the application in the second half. It makes sense. Well, it is not that doctrines have ceased to matter to me, far from it, nor am I saying I did not live out what I was learning in the earlier decades of my Christian life, but somehow in a place of not being as strong as I would like to be, I have really needed help in applying the old truths to new situations. I think that is why I appreciate the writings of people that I often mention in my blog like Henri Nouwen (by the way his name is pronounced as it is written, he was not French!)  and Jean Vanier (whose name is pronounced in French, preferably with a delicious  French accent!). Through leaving very successful careers  (H.N. as a lecturer of legendary fame and popularity in the finest universities, J.V. as a naval officer from a privileged diplomatic background) to live with people facing immense challenges physically and mentally, they have helped me in discoveries they made to apply familiar truths of Jesus Christ to my current situation. To put it more accurately they have shown me truths I have known but with a depth of compassion and tenderness in their telling and application that I had neither seen nor touched before. In the past I threw their books aside with frustration because they were not heavy or precise enough in doctrine for my liking not zealous enough for the things I was zealous about. They have become invaluable to me now and I actually see that if I had stayed zealous in my former way only, my ministry and life would have been less fruitful.

When I was younger, doctrine and expository preaching was enough to transport me to heaven. I thrived on it. That was the be all and end all of ministry in my thinking. I still love to hear it when someone is gifted in that way. However in my earlier church background I  had never really encountered or faced need other than spiritual need. To preach biblical error was a sure sign to me in these days that a person was not even a Christian and should really not be read or listened to; they were false prophets – actually in those days I thought all prophets were false prophets – and false teachers, full-stop, end of story! Now  however, I can see where someone may indeed be wrong biblically about some things and though I do feel sorrow and regret about clear errors in doctrine and know such things can be dangerous spiritually,  I know that their hearts might well be more for the Lord  and for people than is mine. Indeed there is a very good chance that is so. I once was younger, stronger, more able than I am now.  Unless you are a Moses or a Smith Wiggelsworth you know the same is true of you: believe it or not there was a weird teaching  going around in some circles about ten years ago that as believers we should get younger looking as we get older! It was a teaching espoused by the same people who told us everything would crash in the year 2K and how we had better buy in bulk quantities of rice etc.  Incidentally, Y2K was not a disaster and they themselves are looking older apart from the mega-rich who can get regular face lifts and a few other lifts as well, but they have never apologised for getting it wrong! From where I am living now, well it will confirm the suspicions of some about me when I say this: doctrine is not enough for me now. I need the help of God and insightful believers to help me apply the truth as I walk a path I did not need to walk before.

I am learning much and simply want to end with what I am learning or relearning continually in this phase of life more than any other precious truth. Though it might seem an odd collection, expository preachers of various hues,  the Toronto blessing, Henri Nouwen and Jean Vanier, as well as you my fellow bloggers are helping me to know this in ever increasing certainty; as a believer, security in the love of God is the only place from which life can be lived well. Ian MacDonald, the wonderful associate pastor at Holy Trinity Wester Hailes said something in the morning service yesterday which I found quite profound, in fact that was a typical Kenny/Scottish use of the word “quite” as by “quite” profound I really mean “very”profound! I put it right up there with lessons learned form H.N and J.V. et al! He said that as believers, as God’s children, we are not always guaranteed safety in life but we are guaranteed security. To continue in a non Scottish way, “Wow” and “Awesome!”

I needed to hear that. None of us really know what lies ahead: even those who are among the most prophetically accurate people I know sometimes don’t see things coming . As a now old  fashioned more modern hymn puts it, “I do not know what lies ahead, the way I cannot see,”  but “I know who holds the future.” My life is secure in a love from which I can never be separated by anything seen or unseen, past present or to come. Paul was sure of that. He didn’t always have complete clarity even on whether he would live or die, or whether he would or would not be able to reach ministry destinations that he carried in his heart, but he could say, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him until that day.” You can check these words out in 2nd. Timothy. I won’t give you chapter and verse; read the whole thing when you get the time; it won’t take you long. In the midst of everything, including chains and suffering mentioned in the opening chapter, in the midst of desertion by erstwhile friends,  betrayal and injustice and  feeling cold mentioned in the closing chapter, Paul was secure in a grace that had been there since before time itself, which he had discovered in the course of his life here on earth and which would still be there long after the earth has been rolled up like a worn out coat to give way to a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness and peace kiss one another.

So thank you Ian Nouwen MacDonald or Ian Vanier Macdonald – that one comment  yesterday puts you right up there  in my estimation, though actually you have aways been right up there as far as I am concerned. I have always greatly appreciated your preaching  and Ollie’s preaching and others who preach from time to time in Holy Trinity and those who minister in other ways too. I hold you all in tremendously high regard.

For some of us, the idea that we are not guaranteed safety but we are guaranteed security may seem a bit scary. I hope you come to the point of experiencing that the bible is thankfully, realistic: security in the love of God is a greater treasure to discover for living as more than a conqueror in a world such as this world is  or may yet become. One day you will be grateful for Ian’s insight as well.

God bless

Kenny

Just a short “checking in with you all blog” today. I made it to Holy Trinity in Wester Hailes today and loved every minute of being there! I loved the love, the humour, the acceptance and the welcome. The worship was also wonderful and the preaching superb. Of course I now feel tired, no use for anything very much, but that is OK. In fact it is more than OK. That too has blessed me this day. It has helped me this afternoon to lay hold of Christ and sense His nearness as truly as I sensed Him in His people and in His Word  and in worship this morning. What do I mean? Well, I think I am capable of no more wonderful thought in the universe of truth than this: Jesus, when He “took on flesh” as we sang this morning, took upon Himself something that was able to feel tiredness, weakness and pain, hunger, suffering etc. Whatever His future plans may hold for me in terms of healing, I know I don’t need to be well or strong to be understood and honoured with His presence. He is not ashamed to associate Himself with me when I feel weak and useful for nothing.

Sometimes I have heard preaching over the years, or read ideas in books that makes it almost sound as though Christians are the new Aryan race with which God wants to populate the earth – strong, capable, excelling in every field. Indeed some people’s idea of mission seems to be to have top people in top places of every field of human activity and endeavour, eventually taking over everything – not much different from Davros and the Daleks. I have preached in some settings over the years that seemed to reinforce the suggestion; you would have to look quite hard to find anyone who was old or feeble in body or mind or who was anything other than incredibly successful with a very enviable lifestyle.

When I  was growing up as a young believer and moving from Secondary school to University somewhere in the background the dominant hope was that if we influenced graduates who would go on and lead in their fields, well this was the way to change the nation. It doesn’t work that way, yet that is still seen as being a valid thought by a largely middle class evangelical church.  At the start it was different so much so that one of the greatest champions of the faith, Paul, had to say to his nervous son in the faith Timothy, not to be ashamed of  the prison chains and suffering that he, Paul, bore and not to be ashamed of the Lord.  In a world that valued physical prowess  and obeying the law, a God who bled and died on a tree as someone cursed, and who allowed His ambassador who served Him faithfully to be chained up was not an appealing idea. It is not an appealing idea to modern man either. In fact it was the fact that Jesus was not an idea that was the greatest problem for those respected as the wise of the earth. At the centre of our faith is incredible weakness: someBODY who was a baby; someBODY tired and sitting at a well; someBODY dying on a cross.

Let any bodily weakness you feel this day or any day help you also to sense the nearness of the true Jesus Christ and  all that He became when He became flesh for you and me. Especially at those moments when you feel useless for anything, may you sense you are precious, priceless, in His sight.

God bless

Kenny

I really am getting old. How do I know? Well, I used to be glued to the TV for the whole of Wimbledon, but that’s not so much the case now. All the players that were my heroes are long since gone out of the grand slam tournament circuit. The great days for me was the era of  Rod Laver and John Newcombe, Stan Smith and Ilie Nastase, Billie Jean King and Margaret Court and Anne Jones  and Virginia Wade! Watching Murray were some of these great champions from the past. This was pointed out to him by the interviewer, but he looked singularly unimpressed!

Perhaps it is just Andy’s personality, perhaps it is pride, but just perhaps it was right for him to look like that. The fact is that none of those great names of the past  at their age now could do what Murray did today or may yet do in his astonishing tennis career. They had their place and day, but this day belongs to Murray and his contemporaries. Their day will pass too and when it does it will be difficult for fans to accept it. Things move on. My old headmaster said that when he was asked by former pupils how the school was getting on, he would say, “It is twice as good as ever and half as good as when you were there!” Diplomacy! It is always possible to make an idol of the past.

I am remembering today ministers who I still stand in awe of because of their pastoral or preaching ability. They taught me much and gave me a direction in which to grow and as I did discover what ministry looked like for me. Some of them are still ministering, some are dead and gone or undeniably in the latter stages of their lives. However I am still here with an opportunity to minister through this blog. All our days are passing days. It is simple fact.

I am thinking of a verse that I have mentioned before in my blog: “As they say, “It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion!”  (Ecclesiastes 9:4)I hope if you are preaching this weekend that you realise the full privilege of being alive and able so to do. You have the potential this very weekend to bring God glory now and be the means of lives being changed. Don’t be so awed by the lions of preaching or teaching or pastoring in your story that you  have been blessed by that you devalue your own call and significance… but let the memory of them keep you suitably grateful and humble! I hope  on the other hand that if you are listening to preaching or teaching, that though you may be thankful for the good old days and long for Mr. or Mrs. “Whoever they were”  to be your minister still, you will try not to repeatedly mention that person’s blessed name to your current pastor! According to my bible the minister/pastor/teacher you have now is Christ’s gift to the church, including you and your church. Please receive with  gratefulness Christ’s gift to you even if you have to bring an honest prayer to God, “Lord, why on earth or in heaven did you think we needed this gift?” Pray that, and you and/or the congregation you are part of may get a humbling surprise as He shows you.

God bless you and the congregation you are part of!

Kenny

In the old hymn books there used to be two versions of the same hymn now and then. They were both printed and the second went under the title, “Another of the same.”

Well, here is “Another of the same” version of  my previous blog, “Sometimes He just smiles…” It is in simple poem form. It came to me in five minutes, which probably shows the influence of steroids  and a better sleep last night as much as the Spirit of God or any artistic ability,  but it brought hope to me and I hope it may bring the same to some of you who might not be managing to be quite where you want to be in terms of your devotional life. By the way, take out my name and put in yours. It is a sort of gospel “Whosoever” poem for any believer who at this moment may be aware of your own weakness but not quite so aware yet, save by trembling faith, that God’s strength is made perfect in that same weakness. He will get you there…don’t worry.

By the way if you haven’t read “Sometimes He just smiles…” maybe it would be good to read that before this! May one or other or both blogs bless you.

Kenny

A meeting in the cellar

I Am is there when I am and when I am not
The Artist in Residence, warm in thought.
His smile says “Welcome,
Wellness will come.
Please don’t worry,
There is no hurry,
Sit with me if you are able,
I know things are not quite so stable.
When thoughts stop jumping
And steroids stop pumping,
Know I am waiting,
Lovingly creating
A work that speaks of grace,
However slow or fast the pace.
I will complete what I have begun,
The whole story is being spun
On eternal looms of perfect love,
Kenny my fair one, Kenny my dove.”

Copyright K.S. Borthwick

I think if I could preach some themes from my sermons over again I would change them a bit. I don’t think there is truth I would alter but some of the advice I gave to “help” people probably didn’t! You see, I have never been unwell before this illness. So for example, when I gave any advice on devotional life I gave it on the basis of people feeling as well and able in body, mind and spirit as I happened to be at that point of my life. Well, that was a bit thoughtless to be honest. I see that now, from the place of not being so well. Thinking back to the advice I have heard others, especially visiting speakers or conference speakers give on spiritual life or devotional discipline over the years I can see the same fault as was mine.  At times it was as though we, as those listening, were being set an impossible standard, as impossible as Pharaoh’s command that the Israelites should  make bricks without being provided with any help in the process. It was as though the speaker’s personality type or levels of energy and well-being and even their life story that made them the way they were,  were  all being imposed on us, not just the truth of God’s Word. Perhaps just in passing you need to ask yourself if in your thinking God is like Pharaoh, or a seemingly “got it all sussed out” conference speaker, or even like that minister that you have been striving for years to become like?

Let me tell you how my devotional life is now thanks to illness and even more so to steroids. I cannot always go into a secret and quiet place with the Lord as and when I plan or want to. Steroids make me all speeded up, and stop me sleeping so make me tired at the same time. My body and mind rarely seem to be moving at the same pace. There was one glorious moment much earlier on in my treatment when I had to take a plane journey. For a couple of  moments I had the wonderful sensation as the plane roared along the runway and took off that everything was at last moving at the same speed: body, mind, emotions! Morag noticed how relaxed I had gone. It was a moment of harmony and bliss! Heavenly relief!

Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that sometimes when I try and come before the Lord, I can’t. Either my body or my mind won’t let me. I have to seize  moments when quietness and stillness seem within reach. I decided just today to stop beating myself up about that. To those who love discipline I guess that sounds undisciplined. I am just incredibly grateful,to share a thought from Hernri Nouwen from memory, that when my inner life seems like a banana tree full of monkeys jumping up and down, there are moments of calm and settling.

In these  moments I have a spiritual imagination picture that comes to mind which I think the Lord gave me to help me. I see Jesus waiting for me in a cellar below the surface house of my life. I guess a cellar because there are some pretty foundational shifts going on in my long established thinking about ministry, call, worth, future etc. Does Jesus actually look like He looks like in my spiritual imagination? I have no idea, but just as a throwaway awareness, He looks incredibly ordinary… the sort of person you would pass by in the street and they would hardly register in your attention or thinking.

He calls me to come and sit before him as He sits. At times I cannot settle despite feeling I would  have been able to. At such moments He bends forward and touches my face, sometimes pulling my cheek with great warmth and affection and even humour. Everything about Him says, “Don’t worry. It will work another time. Be of good cheer, Kenny!” He does not blame me, but encourages me with the thought that I tried and can try again.

At those times I do manage to settle, He sometimes just smiles at me and I smile at Him, when eventually all the rubbish thoughts that make it difficult for me to hold His gaze of grace and love are dealt with.  It is as though we don’t really feel the need to say anything to one another. At other times He leads me to a stack of paintings like in an Art Shop or Gallery. Before I have any time to make it up, He selects one of His paintings that He has been working on,  to help me understand something of His purpose in the midst of all that makes up my life at this moment. Today it was a picture of green shoots  He showed me, which was so encouraging as the last few weeks have had more than a usual share of tired days and sleepless nights and all the thoughts that attend these realities. When He shows me a painting He then puts it on the wall of the cellar of my inner life. There are only two or three pictures there thus far, but I sometimes go into the cellar to look at them and find comfort, strength and encouragement when I do.

I don’t want to fall into the same mistake over the years of imposing what I do upon you. I hope however that  several thoughts might strengthen you from what I have shared, especially if your body and mind don’t always seem to do what you wish they would when you wish they would do it!

Jesus is waiting to meet with you:
He knows there will be times when you can manage to meet with Him and times you cannot settle:
He does not look at you with frustration but as His work of Art that He delights in creating:
Sometimes all He wants to do is smile at you, and if you can manage it, for you to smile at Him.

One of the greatest discoveries of being not so well, is that Jesus is far kinder, far more compassionate, far lovelier, far more “for me”  than I had dared to imagine.

May God help you to come into His presence and settle, but don’t worry when you can’t. The time will come… and Jesus is still smiling, not scowling at you.

God bless

Kenny

A paraphrase and a hymn from the early days of my Christian life came winging their way back to me today. My conversion centered upon the cross upon this amazing truth that “the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me.” That never ceased to amaze Paul even after years of Christian living and ministry, and it has never ceased to amaze me. It is where I have lived and ministered from too, even if not in as astonishing and history changing way as Paul. I said in my last blog to this one that there is always a danger that our Christianity shifts its centre of gravity from what Christ has done for us to what we can do for Him. We have turned Christianity into a 2 letter word “DO” and sometimes forget the liberating life changing truth that the centre of Christian doctrine and living and fruitful service is a 4 letter word, “DONE!”

Maybe you need to remember that. I know that everything moves on. I love many of the new songs that God has blessed his people with in recent years. However, I must admit, I miss singing these wonderful words about the cross… I hope this is more than nostalgia, and blesses you…

“The Savour died but rose again”

The Saviour died, but rose again
Triumphant from the grave;
And pleads our cause at God’s right hand,
Omnipotent to save.

Who then can e’er divide us more
From Jesus and his love,
Or break the sacred chain that binds
The earth to heaven above?

Let troubles rise, and terrors frown,
And days of darkness fall;
Through him all dangers we’ll defy,
And more than conquer all.

Nor death nor life, nor earth nor hell,
Nor time’s destroying sway,
Can e’er efface us from his heart,
Or make his love decay.

Each future period he will bless,
As he has blessed the past;
He loved us from the first of time,
He loves us to the last.

“We sing the praise of Him who died”

We sing the praise of him who died,
of him who died upon the cross;
the sinner’s hope let men deride;
for this we count the world but loss.

Inscribed upon the cross we see
in shining letters, God is love:
he bears our sins upon the tree:
he brings us mercy from above.

The cross: it takes our guilt away,
it holds the fainting spirit up;
it cheers with hope the gloomy day,
and sweetens every bitter cup.

It makes the coward spirit brave,
and nerves the feeble arm for fight;
it takes its terror from the grave,
and gilds the bed of death with light.

The balm of life, the cure of woe,
the measure and the pledge of love,
the sinner’s refuge here below,
the angel’s theme in heaven above.

In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, however you or I voted, it is amazing how angry people can get at a democratic vote. The story is growing that the vote went the way it did because of the old, the poor and the stupid, the non thinking and the gullible…and those are some of the kinder words being used to explain the result. I find it all at least a bit cynical, and even at times sinister. I guess we all feel more fond of democracy when the majority think like me and share my convictions and stress the facts I stress  and ignore the facts I ignore and are persuaded by reasons that persuade me, if we are honest. Whatever, I am thinking of what G.K. Chesterton said once about the Church of Jesus Christ; he said it was such a true democracy that we even give a vote and a voice to the dead, to past generations of believers, in the church of the present day! Church traditions are not all bad just because they are old. Likewise, the worship songs of the past should not be thrown out because they are old or because there are wonderful and blessed newer songs around, though they should have a voice too and not be shut out just because they are new: God’s people have since bible days been called to sing new songs to the Lord about His present activity as well as old songs that celebrate the mighty deeds of God in days of old.  I am not sure how many in the church like the idea of such a democracy. Just saying… whether anyone listens or not! After all, we do live in a democracy do we not?

God Bless
Kenny

I was privileged to be at Glasgow University at the time when Murdo Ewen MacDonald was Professor of Practical Theology. Without doubt he was one of the very best preachers I have ever heard. He had a fascinating life story as well, part of which involved being a prisoner of war in the Camp where “The Great Escape” actually happened. He was one of those whose responsibility it was to get rid of the earth and sand resulting from the digging of the escape tunnels. He became chaplain to the American prisoners who had no chaplain of their own. News of the war was passed back and forward between the British and American sectors in the prison camp by Gaelic! A Gaelic speaker on the side of the fence that had a radio shouted over the news in Gaelic to Murdo Ewen who then shared the news on his side of the fence. The Germans could not work out what on earth was being said!

Come D-Day, having received the momentous news of the landings in the customary enemy confusing way, Murdo Ewen simply went back inside the prison huts and announced to his fellow prisoners, “They’ve come.” There was a moment of absolute silence which was followed by unforgettable scenes: grown men were sobbing, laughing, dancing, screaming with joy. This was the effect of hearing what had been done and accomplished for them.

We must never forget as Christians what has been done for us. In these days it is great that Christians seems to be coming into a new confidence that God can use us to spread His Kingdom; a confidence that by the Holy Spirit we have been equipped with ministries and gifts with which the church and the world can be blessed. However, it is hearing what Christ has done for us rather than what we can do for Him that must always be the joyful centre of everything; all that His living, His cross and His empty tomb has done for us. D-Day has happened already for us at Calvary, where sin, guilt, shame, were carried by Him on our behalf. Enemy principalities and powers were disarmed; the decisive spiritual battle of all the ages has been won; there may still be battles but the victory of God is sure.

My experience of deliverance ministry has been very minimal. I have witnessed this though: demons go and freedom comes to troubled individuals not when someone shouts and postures and makes a great show of their ministry, but when the victory of the cross is simply announced and proclaimed with assurance and joy.

Amongst other ways that Paul described his ministry, when writing his second letter to Timothy he refers to himself as a herald. I guess a herald announces to the citizens of a Kingdom what has happened already or what is with equal certainty going to happen in that Kingdom. Whatever may be oppressing you today, you need to realise your D-Day has happened. Christ has come into this world for you, He has died for you, He has been raised for you and one day He will surely come for you, and you shall reign with Him forever. Rejoice in Him afresh and be a herald of His victory to your own self and others!

I confess a slight worry: over the years I have sought as a part of my ministry to equip people in understanding and experiencing the ministries and gifts of the Holy Spirit. I hope however that we never replace what Jesus did for us all already on the cross, which any person can access by personal God given faith, with what we can do for one another in the power of the Spirit in terms of ministry. That would be the wrong centre of gravity to try and establish. Perhaps there needs to be a redress in balance for some of us reading this blog. Maybe you have become too dependent on ministry times, prayer times, the gifts of God operating through God’s people rather than resting and rejoicing in Christ and the D-Day of the cross. Do you need to go in faith to Calvary yourself? If you do then go there, stay there, until you hear the announcement of D-Day in your spirit: “FINISHED!”

Christ and what He has done rather than church and what we can do must ever be the centre of our announcements as heralds of the Kingdom of God. By the way, whatever your ministry may be – and we do all have one – let’s never forget our prime ministry is to get people into a steady  and living relationship with Jesus, not keep then in a continual dependence upon us or  our ministry. Hugh Black always encouraged people in ministry to take people through to Christ Himself.

Just listen over the next few weeks to all that you hear in church, in your house groups, on God TV, at summer conferences or to what a book or a purchased teaching series is saying with this one central question in mind: How central is Christ in what I am being told? Am I being sold a ministry under the guise that it is indispensable for walking in victory? If so, we are being sold a lie. Christian advertising should be truthful; exaggeration is lying. Leave that ministry aside; get alone with Jesus.

I once was ministering to someone and felt God gave me a picture to help me and them. In this picture I saw the man I was seeking to help struggling to do up buttons on his shirt. The interpretation that I put on that is that if we get the first button of a shirt in place every other button will fall into its proper place. Actually the real meaning was he had a phobia of buttons which became apparent in quite a dramatic way as I mentioned the picture God had given me! However my wrong interpretation then is a permanent spiritual truth as well; getting the first button in place really does matter; Christ and His finished victory first in my thinking and my hopes: the bedrock of my trust.

God Bless

Kenny

(I thought it might be useful to put this blog out after my previous blog posted earlier today. If you haven’t read the earlier one, “Persons not Projects” if might help you to read that first and then come back and read this if you have time. I have been really moved by those who have posted me publicly or privately about your own or a loved one’s battle with some form of mental illness. I hope what follows below is helpful in carrying that difficult and distressing experience, as well as relevant to other dilemmas some of us may be living in as we follow Jesus . I felt I should not keep this back until tomorrow. Some folk need to hear this today! K)

You have maybe heard  of the book “The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe,” by Stephen Hawking. That title is quite a claim! Well, not to be outdone, today  I offer you in the Name of Christ, “The Truth about Everything”  you will ever experience in life as a follower of Jesus Christ. It is not a new truth nor a new truth to my blogs: it is this; “The Kingdom of God/The Kingdom of Heaven is near.” The greatest central theme of the teaching of Jesus, His Gospel, proclaimed that in Him, God’s promised and prophesied reign and Kingdom had drawn near to people on earth. He spoke of a Kingdom that had come, that was coming and that would one day fully come. To sum it up, He spoke of “the already here not yet Kingdom of God.”

When you get hold of that you find the interpretive key by which to understand everything that happens in your life as a believer. When there is a breakthrough of the obvious power of God,well, why is that? It  is because the Kingdom of Heaven is near. When a breakthrough does not come as we had hoped, why is that? The Kingdom of Heaven is not here in its fullness and we are still waiting for the day when all sickness, suffering, death itself will be past and God will wipe away every tear. We are still waiting for the day Scripture promises when these things shall be no more. When miraculous things happen they are described in the bible as “signs.” Signs point to something, assuring us we are on the right road journeying towards an as yet not fully reached destination; the already here but not yet kingdom. However, so do “non sign” signs! When there is no rescue or healing, Christians know that too points forward to the same certain day which is still to come.

From time to time movements arise in the church which challenge the Scriptural balance by saying that we can have all of that future day now. The result is usually a small increase in the incidence of the miraculous and a huge increase in disillusionment and distress which is sadly generally conveniently ignored. When the truth believers proclaim becomes out of sync with reality, we are on dangerous ground. I have lived long enough to see several movements which have gone beyond what Scripture says, and probably they cause as much loss of faith as they encourage faith. This blog feels like it is maybe too late to help. The “Have it all Now” Kingdom horse is bolting once again and has picked up quite a speed; It almost seems unchallengeable… however, one day you might remember this blog and it may help you to  help someone who has been trampled on by that horse, and left with untended wounds.

Both healing and non healing are signs of what believers in heaven know right at this moment: The Kingdom of Heaven has not yet fully come even in heaven, let alone on earth. There are a huge throng of people in heaven still waiting for “The Day of the Lord” when injustices will be reversed. As I said before in another blog, those in heaven (with the possible exception of two or three; Jesus (for sure) and one or two others whose taking leave of this earth is a bit of an Old Testament mystery) are waiting for their sick, dead , diseased and decaying bodies which are lying in weakness and dishonour in land or sea or blown to the wind through war or atomic or terrorist bombs, to be healed and raised; the seed of what shall be raised incorruptible. The saints in heaven understandably have better theology than saints on earth have yet worked out. The saints in heaven know what some saints on earth sometimes find it difficult to accept: we are a waiting people who whatever “sign signs “or “non-sign signs’ we are rejoicing in or confused by, long for this announcement: “Now is the dwelling of God with men.” In speaking too much of faith for heaven now, we are perhaps in danger of reducing the priceless worth of  Christian hope:

“Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight

At the sound of his roar, sorrow shall be no more

When he bears his teeth, winter meets its death

And when he shakes his mane, we will have spring again!”

(The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis.)

Kenny

I am thinking today of someone I know who has manic depression. More specifically I was thinking of the distress well meaning believers have caused him over the years. On one occasion  someone told him they had a picture of Jesus taking away truck load after truck load of his sins! I know the good intention behind what was shared but there are ways of saying things and ways of not saying things!

The other thing I am thinking of though is that he was aware he was the cause of frustration to many believers who were praying for him. Thus far there has been no miracle of healing for everyone to see. I remember however that as we walked and talked together once he turned to me and said, “Kenny my miracle is that I am still here.” That is the daily miracle of more people than we realise.

There are a couple of insights I hope you can take from that:

Number 1: Don’t get so caught up with what God has not done or not done yet, that you fail to celebrate what He has done and is doing. That man, who actually may not even have been   a believer at the point he said that to me, was genuinely grateful for God’s help in a way that few Christians around him seemed to rejoice in. Celebrating what God is doing, is not closing the door on what He may yet do.. or not do.

Number 2: Sometimes we fail to appreciate or have the insight of God’s love into what someone in need really wants or longs for.  Our need as those who pray or care, may be to see God do  particular thing. However it may be that what we long to see is not what those we pray for  are craving and yearning for. Someone wrote in response to an earlier blog, saying that the deaf community with whom they worked, didn’t really more than anything want healing as such. More than that they wanted welcome and acceptance. It is good to remember that people are not  a ministry project to prove a point, a doctrine, or our faith,  but people to be loved and understood with sensitivity. I recall the pain with which someone told me a few years back that the interest some people were showing in them felt like it was interest in a project rather than interest in a person.

Let me apply that to myself: what is the  greatest need I am aware of at this moment? Is it for healing of my lungs? Well, that is certainly a need, but it is not my deepest need and would almost be a wonderful extra blessing or bonus. My deepest need is to know that God is with me. It brings me a joy that makes me forget I have any illness when the touch of His reassuring presence is upon me. That touch often comes. May you know that reassuring presence this day. I am not sure there is any greater blessing than knowing that the God who loves us , the God who is for us not against us, is with us.

God bless

Kenny

Well, just in case you get the false impression from these blogs that I sail through difficulties with great spiritual strength, today, largely through sleeplessness and medication,  I cannot focus on either praying or reading the Bible. When I read the Bible I cannot hold on to what I have read. When  I pray I lose concentration and  find out I am not praying at all. However there are truths that I have  hidden in my heart over the years and they are enough. Today it is truths from old fashioned hymns that are strengthening me: Here is a verse that keeps on coming to mind:

“We have an anchor that keeps the soul
Steadfast and sure while the billows roll,
Fastened to the Rock which cannot move
Grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love.”

That is what I am focussing on today. I am remembering  for myself  what I said to you in a blog a while back: “Little is much when God is in it.” I found Him today in that simple hymn and in a gentle walk with a friend and their dog.

Don’t be like a Pharisee or a Teacher of the Law and lay burdens on your back that are hard to bear. Expect God’s help to come to you in beautiful, simple ways. That is really all I can share today and perhaps all I need to share.

Kenny