Sometimes when I listen to myself preaching I can hear the influences of preachers and bible teachers that I have known over my younger years. I guess that is ok and in a sense inevitable. Sometimes it can go too far, to a quite ridiculous extent! I have heard of people stroking their invisible moustaches emulating a favourite preacher who did have a moustache. I have even heard of bald headed men flicking back a non existent lock of hair because of imitating someone who was influential upon them!

I was thinking today of a phrase of the Apostle Paul which I have mentioned before in a blog: “Imitate me in as far as I imitate Christ.” What does it really mean to imitate Christ? At the very least I guess it means asking  questions like “What would Jesus do, what would He say, how would He react, how would He cope in this moment facing what I am facing, how would He meet this challenge or temptation?” It is not so difficult to work out the answer to these questions so long as we are giving the Bible a central place in our lives and thinking. However there is a thought that runs throughout Henri Nouwen’s writings that suggests another, perhaps fuller meaning: Jesus came as the Beloved of God, and spoke of the One who loved Him and called others to discover through Him that they were the Beloved of God too. He wants us to follow Him in that way as well; to live in this world as the Beloved of God, being a unique manifestation of that belovedness and helping others to discover their belovedness too and live out  a unique expression of that.

So, let’s imitate Christ not only in behaviour and speech etc. but in His awareness of being the Beloved of the Father.  That will free imitation from merely becoming copying and prevent us from becoming a clone even of other believers we admire or being irritated because others  willl not conveniently become a clone of me! May belovedness become flesh for all to see in you and in me. May we help one another to  know that perfect love that drives out all fear and sets us free to be who each one of us was truly made to be before circumstances, other people or we ourselves messed it up!

Brennan Manning suggests the following prayer that could help you. It is very short;  it fits in with the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out; you can say it as many times through the day or night as is needful to set your heart at rest. Especially at those moments when I find my energy reserves low and don’t aways know why, short but powerful prayers are a blessing to me these days more than I can put into words. May this one be a blessing to you too.  In prayer – it may come as a relief to you to hear this – small can be beautiful and powerful! Here is the prayer;  ask Jesus to help you through the Holy Spirit to say it, mean it and believe it:

“ABBA, I BELONG TO YOU.”

Beloved one, why not use that prayer tonight before you close your eyes and tomorrow when you awaken, or indeed at any time of the day or night for that matter?

You might also like to click the link below when you get the time. I find it truly wonderful!

Kenny

Henri Nouwen

Also why not find 15 minutes and click on this meditation on the Abba Prayer by Rich Johnston. It will be time well spent!

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 just thinking today of how Jesus could have made things easier on Himself. For example He healed people on the Sabbath who had been ill for years. Could He not have waited just a few hours until the Sabbath was over before healing them? It would certainly have spared Jesus the wrath of the Pharisees on at least some occasions.

This tells us something about the heart of Jesus, that alleviating need and helping people should never be delayed when something can be done right now for a fellow human being.

I had a dream last night of me keeping someone knocking at a door wanting my help:  I delayed in answering and by the time I did they were tired and in pain.

Don’t wait if it is in your hands to help someone right now. Don’t even wait till this Sabbath, this day is over. Maybe a prayer, a phone call or a text, an arrangement to meet up this coming week, or a cheque dropped in the post, or money dropped though their door anonymously this very night would help them and you sleep easier.

Scripture does not seem to look kindly on those who have the wherewithal and the intention to help and either do nothing or delay. The Bible says it  is the  road to hell that is paved with good but unfulfilled intentions, not the narrow path that leads to true life lived in the blessing of God.

I did something about the person in my dream, and I am glad I did! It was easily enough done.

I could have delayed this blog until tomorrow when more would catch it and read it, but again, I feel glad I didn’t. I hope some who read  this will be glad I didn’t delay either…

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.

Sunday cometh…. and  I am thinking of pastors again. There are precious few pursuing that calling who have not been told once or more, “You are the worst minister this congregation has ever had!” Of course we can bring wrath upon ourselves needlessly, but often that comment is directed towards ministers who are faithfully proclaiming the Word of Life, working more hours than the normal working week, pastoring with great sensitivity.  Most congregations have at least some who have opposed the gospel throughout several ministries before you came, have opposed it through you and will, bar the grace of God, oppose the next minister that will come after you!

Just remember as you stand today with no other bread  to offer other than what God has said in His Word, there are actually a great many on your side. I don’t mean simply within the pews as you look out, though that is more than likely true. That however is not what I am thinking about. I am thinking of that great cloud of witnesses many of whom have experienced hostility even to the point of shedding their blood for Christ down through the centuries that  is referred to in Hebrews Chapter 11 and 12.

Again,  a Hugh Black story comes to mind. He was in a meeting where  as a Pentecostal he was defending the gift of speaking in tongues at a time when that gift was less common in the Scottish scene than it is now. On the other side of the debate was a Professor, a couple of learned Phd types etc etc. Hugh Black felt vastly outnumbered, but then he started to think , “If the first Apostles were with me they would be on my side of the floor! If the whole New Testament Church were here today, they would be with me!” He got to the stage where he felt sorry for Professor So and So and the various Doctors, because they were so vastly outnumbered.

Well, some of you, I know, may be uncertain about tongues. You are outnumbered by the way… but that is not my point today, it is just Charismatic bravado that I could not resist! My point rather is that if you are in a situation of facing hostility for the gospel’s sake, there are indeed more on your side now and throughout time than you perhaps have realised.

I am not sure what the great cloud of witnesses who surround us do in relation to us. If they and we are to be like Jesus, whatever else they do they probably pray for you as He does that for us.

In the past I have known what it is to have butterflies in my stomach on the way to church on Sunday or to a Session Meeting I knew was going to be difficult though not necessarily knowing who would make and who would fire the bullets. I have got the T Shirt, as the popular phrase goes. Actually, that is to make light of it: I have got the scars but can say I have experienced healing too through God’s people.

So if this is a day of butterflies in the stomach for you Man of God, Woman of God, may you be aware of the vast army of which you are part.  Welcome to the company of Hebrews 11! May you not feel so alone by the end of Sunday as perhaps you may feel at its start. To borrow the title of a book by Max Lucado, may you hear, “The Applause of Heaven!”

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.

One of the finest preachers I have ever heard was Rev. George B. Duncan who was minister of St. George’s Tron in the centre of Glasgow. In my early days as a young believer I was so aware of God speaking straight into my life again and again through his preaching, Sunday by Sunday. For me that was the most exciting day of the week. I knew I would meet with God through the power of His Word. I often saw a glow around Mr. Duncan  and particularly on his face, which I didn’t really understand at first, but I came to believe it was the presence of God, the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I know I did not imagine it because others have mentioned they saw the same. How blessed I was to benefit from that man’s ministry and from the excellent ministry of his successor, the Rev. Eric  J. Alexander, probably to this day one of the very finest and most anointed bible teachers I have ever heard. The memories are sweet and precious to me even decades on in time. It is good to hear of new life blossoming in that church again under the ministry of the wonderful, wise and courageous leadership of   Rev. Alastair Duncan. I was excited to hear recently of fresh growth and the appointing of new elders.

As this Sunday comes around, I am remembering Mr. Duncan speaking in  a sermon about a time when he had been preaching in another church where there was a vacancy. Someone came up to him after the service and said, “Mr. Duncan, we have seen something in the pulpit today that we have not seen for the last 25 years.” Mr. Duncan asked, “What is that?” The reply?  “A smile!”

Mr. Duncan said to us all with incredulity, “Imagine someone preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ for 25 years without a smile!” One of the ways in which Job defended himself from accusation is that he “smiled on those who had no confidence.” A smiling face from an awesomely high pulpit is all I can remember about Mr. Duncan’s predecessor, Rev.Tom Allan who had a quite legendary ministry in the city centre of Glasgow. As  a 3 or 4 year old, it was his smile that made an impression on me. I occasionally find myself remembering it  to this day five and a half decades on in time.

Referring to that incident in the vacant church, Mr.  Duncan went on to say something I have never forgotten in all my years preaching. He said that people come to church after perhaps a week in which they may have been shouted at by their boss, shouted at by their spouses, shouted at by their family, shouted at by their work colleagues, perhaps they have even been shouted at by themselves and then sadly often they go to church on Sunday where they are shouted at and whipped again by their minister!

Fellow preachers, life can be quite a struggle for people. Remember that, as you look out on your congregation this weekend. Perhaps, if you do, it will influence your tone and even your face. Perhaps your face will glow with the Holy Spirit as your words are warmed by the flame of God’s love. You might not know it is happening, but the people will see it, sense it and thank God for it and for you. Indeed they may well still be saying the occasional ‘Thank You’ to God not simply for what you said but even more so for the way you said it, decades from now….

“May it be so Lord, Amen”

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 political in the narrow or bigoted sense, but I do have thoughts about things that would be deemed political especially when they impinge on areas of morality or justice. I heard a snatch of an interview about BHS shutting down on the radio today. It is as well I did not know who was speaking as the views of one of them were quite idiotic. He seemed to be to the right of Genghis Khan in the way he talked about people. He seemed to say that BHS was a shop for poorer people and that these customers had caused the collapse of the stores because irritatingly they could not make up their mind to buy stuff! Ah well, it is amazing how the lights can be on but there is no one in!

I should say that that person whoever he was consistently wanted to blame BHS customers for the difficulty partly to deflect attention away from the central core of the conversation which was around the question of should the former owner of BHS be held responsible for doing something about the collapse to help the thousands who will lose their jobs and thousands more who will not now get the pension they have been paying in to for decades in this private company. Sir Philip Green has made over 1000 million pounds from BHS in other words more than a billion pounds. He has just paid his family a dividend of over 400 million pounds. He stands to make another 35 million pounds or thereabouts from the collapse of BHS! He could plug the 500 million pound hole in the pension fund twice over and have quite a few tens of million left out of what he has made from BHS alone, leaving aside other very successful businesses.

The thing is, Sir Philip has done nothing wrong legally, absolutely nothing. But if he chooses to do nothing to help the thousands plunged into the misery of financial want and unemployment, is that moral? Please know I am not judging the man, that is not my place. It is simply this is a live issue and throws up a common modern day dilemma.”I have done nothing wrong” seems to be a phrase that we hear often in the news these days from prominent figures, and is presumably meant to be the end of a matter.

Since the collapse of communism and many socialist parties selling out their principles we are basically left with capitalism  of one hue or another as “the way the world works,” certainly in Britain. Capitalism can be legal and immoral at the same time. Of course at its best it can be both legal and moral but there is absolutely nothing requiring it to do anything more than “doing nothing wrong!” It is not required to model grace which is way more generous than law.

I guess I feel concerned that Christians and Christian churches can fall into the “doing nothing wrong” frame of mind as being a sufficiently Christian goal. The old formal prayers in which we ask God for forgiveness not only for the wrong we have done but for the good we have not done  which always made me yawn in church when I was younger, though sounding a bit dreary and monotonous are good prayers and bang up to date after all! The parable of the labourers in the vineyard makes it clear that going by the letter of a legal contract and no more is not as high as we should be aspiring. It may be the logic of earth, but it is not the logic of heaven. (See Matthew 20 verses 1 – 16.)

I suppose I am saying that the thing about truly living in the grace of God is that one of its fruits is generosity in the way we offer our lives to the life of the world. It really is about going the second mile that no law can demand. It is seeing that though no law can command me to care as though I were my brother or sister’s keeper, God cares and wants me to care as well. How boring and stilted friendships, relationships, marriages would be if the goal was to do nothing wrong! So often in pastoring “fall outs” in my years as a parish minister, my heart used to sink like a stone as someone passionately exclaimed, “But I have done nothing wrong!”

The elder brother in the story of the Prodigal Son kept all the laws of house and home and family, but he had a mean spirit. The Pharisees were particularly angry that Jesus seemed to portray in word and deed and miracle a God who was too generous for their liking, who opened the door at street level into His family and Kingdom.

May God help us to go further than being mean spirited believers who never do anything wrong. That is not only wrong towards others but extremely boring! I remember reading the true story of a tribal chief listening to a Christian missionary. After listening he then asked with sadness, “So if I follow your God, I cannot lie in wait for my enemy and ambush him and kill him; I cannot steal his wife and his property? But I am too old to do these things now. To be old and to be a Christian, they are the same thing, yes?”

I am not condoning the pleasures of sin. Nor am I saying, in quoting that story, that I am agreeing with the chief that to be old is to be boring! However I am saying please don’t be a Christian who lives only in the realm of obeying the “thou shalt nots!” That will not only make you mean but give you a Christianity that will eventually bore you as much as it will put others off wanting to have anything to do with Christ. God save His people from being legal but mean and boring! May God fill us with His generous love and life that cannot be happy doing nothing wrong but rejoices in the right and in doing the right. That is part of the outworking of God’s love in and through us. It is much more fun to throw yourself into a wave than to paddle. Be more dog! Fling yourself in! Dogs don’t stop to think that if they fly into a wave they might swallow a bit of salt water, or that they will have to get their paws dried and their coat will get wet and they will probably have to get a bath when they get home and might not be allowed on the sofa until they are dry again! Keep nothing back! Abandon yourself to the love of God. Jump right in! In fact maybe some of you should literally go and jump into the waves of the sea as a prophetic sign of intent. I couldn’t quite hold back all notes of quirkiness,  despite what I said the end of my last blog….

God bless

Kenny

Of course some dogs are even more dog than others! Watch this…

https://youtu.be/-pmwQKeeUxw

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 guess you are used to this blog being quirky now and then. Well.., it is today, with bells on!

The blog usually begins to materialise on the page through me asking God something. This time He asked me to think about something. I believe He was asking me to think about what were the commonest needs that I came across pastorally. Well, I could think of several, but the 2 that seemed to present themselves to my attention are marital tension in Christian marriages and sleeplessness. It is a sad fact that many Christian marriages are not in a very good place. It is also a sad fact that so many Christians cannot seem to receive and unwrap the gift of sleep that the psalmist assures us God gives to His beloved.

Here is the quirky bit: Paul has told us to earnestly desire the gifts that would build up the body of Christ, especially that we would prophesy. Well, alongside especially seeking that, this would build up the church a lot; people who had a gift of praying for or helping marriages and a gift of praying for sleep. I have bumped into a few in the former category and fewer in the latter category.

Sleep has often been contested in my life, quite severely. At one point I was in Norway speaking at a conference. My sleep had been dreadful, but I had told no one. A lady whose name I didn’t know, came over to me when I hadn’t asked her, prayed a prayer in words that I did not understand and went away without any explanation! From that moment and through the night it felt as though the inside of my brain was getting a massage… and I slept deeply and woke fresh as a daisy, which is not usual for a Scottish insomniac and is probably quite rare even for  a Scotsman who does sleep well! There was nothing that I could have asked for that could have built me up more! When things have become almost unbearable as they do become from time to time in the area  of sleep for me,  someone seems to have come along eventually and the effect of their ministry and prayer is that sleep has been restored. They have never been famous names in the Christian world, but of course the Christian scene does not always coincide perfectly with God’s Kingdom.

There is a fair bit of Christian and indeed Kingdom of God “help” and literature and courses etc. to do with marriage. There could be more and it could be more accessible financially for more people. The cost of these things is an insult to financially poorer believers as though God can only help you if you can pay for it. Christian help and victory now seems to have the same sort of possibility of accessibility as private medicine; it comes at a price for those who can afford it… but what about ministries in the power of the Spirit to help Christians sleep? That would bless an enormous number of Christians for whom the promise mentioned above, of sleep being given to God’s beloved , is both a promise they believe in and at times a bit of a torment to body, mind and spirit.

Well, I don’t know what you do with this blog today, so there it is! More normal levels of quirkiness will be resumed shortly….

Much love

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.

There was a period in my ministry and in our life together as a family where we came under prolonged attack. I believe I kept my heart right towards the main perpetrators, but at times I was made to doubt that because of the prayers of other believers. What do I mean? Well, at prayer meetings, there would always be somebody or other who would pray for “Dear….” and name those harming us in a tone of great warmth and friendliness and affection. What is more there would always be a few who would grunt in agreement! When they prayed like that I felt deeply wounded. It actually felt as though the wrong being done which already was like a knife that had been plunged into us sorely, was now being twisted by the hands of believers through their prayers and lack of thoughtfulness. Those who prayed thus, never prayed for me or my family with any sense of care. It was as though the physical attacks and threats against us, the attacks on our property through the night, the wrongs done  to our children, the lies that were being spoken and written about me and the church were a light matter to be passed over. In fact the effects lasted many years.

Did my feelings in the Prayer Meeting show my heart was wrong, that I was not walking in forgiveness? All I know is that Hugh Black who I have often mentioned helped me much more in his prayers over the phone. He had heard something about what was happening, and phoned up to pray for me. “He simply said, “Lord, we come to you concerning that wicked man.” When he said that ,I felt the wrath of God against wickedness. It was so fearful that I almost wanted to run away myself from the release of God’s power and authority into the situation that came as Mr. Black gently prayed. It made me tremble and indeed shake physically, and I am saved! It made me fearful for the perpetrators of the wrong. I have never forgotten that moment. It is indeed a fearful things to fall into the hands of the living God. Somehow that prayer healed the hurt of those other prayers. The fact that God calls us to walk in forgiveness does not mean that I cannot acknowledge there is such a thing as evil and wickedness and there is such a thing as wicked people. Forgiveness means after all that there is some wrong that has been done.

Please remember to speak carefully when you are dealing with people who have been severely wronged. Forgiveness does not mean they should think of perpetrators of wickedness against them as anything other than perpetrators of wickedness against them who will either meet God in white hot wrath or will repent and therefore meet Him in His white hot mercy one day. Yes, our prayer should indeed be for forgiveness for those who wrong us, but that does not mean we need to call wickedness anything less than it is, or in any way disregard the damage done. The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy. He has been a murderer and a liar since the beginning. There are those who unwittingly become his channels, ignorant perhaps of the source of their deeds or the fruit thereof. There are however, those who cross a line in full awareness and offer themselves to be his channels. The bible records Jesus prayer for those who crucified Him, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” There were however those who did know what they were doing in the events that led to the cross and concerning them, the same bible in the gospels on the lips of Jesus and in Acts on the lips of Peter uses the words “godless… sinful… wicked.” To use the wrong Scripture in a circumstance or a situation can cause deep damage.

Don’t speak lightly of wickedness or forgiveness to those who have had many years of their lives destroyed by wicked people doing wicked things to them or those they love. To speak of forgiveness before the right time can be a form of abuse. The moment to speak of it will, indeed must come, but let’s think twice before we blithely say, “In the bible, God says, ‘I will restore the years the locust have eaten,’ you know!”

Maybe there is someone reading this who needs to know that God regards something that happened to you as wickedness by the hands of wicked people. You don’t have to pretend anything other or try and believe some other description of the story of the wrong done to you. I hope you might find a person who can pray with you with the honesty, the awareness, the realism and the power and authority of Hugh Black.

This is a serious blog, I know, but there you have it. May it bless those for whom it is particularly meant and help the rest of us to be wise and thoughtful in all our dealings with people.

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 now pretty much accepted that the presentation by Shakespeare of Richard III was a literary necessity more than being historically accurate. There has of course been a lot about W.S. in the news and on T.V. lately. I can’t say that I particularly like Shakespeare but I found myself these days having a greater appreciation than when I was a pupil in Secondary School and may indeed become a fan in years to come. The famous, “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer…” soliloquy is indeed spell binding. Richard’s contentment  has come about because of the outworking of his villainy, a villainy which though devilish is often cloaked in false saintliness when it is helpful to his cause. Things are heading in the right way, in his mind, which basically means things are progressing from the crown for his family in the person of his brother Edward, toward the crown for him himself once he has committed a few murders. “Contentment” is a theme that comes up too in “Henry VI.”  Henry says simply, “I am content,” which seems to be a state he is happy with as King.

When are you or I content? That says a lot about where we are spiritually. Does our contentment depend on things going our way? Can we be content when things are not going in the way we had hoped or planned?

How many lives could be transformed, marriages saved, family life renewed, churches set at peace if more could say with Paul, “I have discovered the secret of being content.” It was a secret that worked in good days and trying days, in days of plenty and days of lack. Paul’s contentment was unshakable. It did not depend on the cleverness of his devices, his skill at handling  or manipulating friends and enemies in like manner to Richard III. It did not depend on things going his way. It depended on a simple, quiet and proven principle; “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” ( Why not read about this in Philippians Chapter 4 verses 12 and 13.)

It matters not whether things go  what you might consider “your way” this day. You can be happy, content, when they do not because you are living in Paul’s shared and open secret.

May you and I be content this day, by the grace of God.

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.

Today, I found myself thinking about Elijah learning that God was making Himself known to him in unfamiliar ways. Elijah had known God make His presence and will known in very dramatic ways, but there came a day when he did not find God in the dramatic occurrences of a hurricane, an earthquake or a fire, but in the sound of silence – normally translated as “a still small voice.” You can read the story for yourself in 1 Kings 19. It was not that the true and living God would not speak in dramatic ways again. In the New Testament He spoke to the early church and indeed to unbelievers by hurricane, tongues of fire and  also by an earthquake that shook a building. He has done so throughout the centuries and continues to do so today in places where His presence is hungered after and sought in true earnestness no matter how He may choose to manifest His glory.

There is a paradox in  growing in our knowledge of God. He teaches us how to recognise His presence but the familiar must never become merely a process by which God is bound to operate. I remember when I was an assistant minister that my  method of preparing sermons was to take an empty piece of paper, look at a bible passage, pray, look up commentaries, make notes. God met me in doing that. There came a day however where when I was doing the familiar thing I did not find His familiar help or presence. By night time the page was still empty and I thought I would have to get out of the ministry! I think I wrote about that difficult moment  in a previous blog. The next morning though, God helped me, as did my boss, Rev. Ian Paterson, with words of simple and kind wisdom. God  taught me that though what I was doing was an approach to  preparation He could bless, there were other ways for Him to speak to me and help me. I will not share the “ins and outs” of that lest you are tempted to make what I share from that experience yet another process!

It was an important lesson. All of a sudden a fresh grace was released to help me preach. At various times over the years God has come to me in fresh ways to do with that aspect of my calling. I have discovered that as I have listened and learned from His Spirit,  that the well of God’s grace and help is indeed deep and never runs dry. If I keep listening then I know there will be grace to do all that is asked of me for all my days. I no longer have a confidence in methods, but my confidence in God has grown. Sometimes, though, there is an interim period of wrestling until I acknowledge with discomfort  that I am not finding God in the place I have found Him before and then step out not knowing precisely whither I am going, or where I may find His welcome presence resting.

Maybe you did “the same as usual today,” the usual things that help you become aware of God and what He is trying to say and how He is leading but today “it’ “didn’t work!” Well, that can feel a bit scary but see it as an adventure to discover the God you know adding to the variety of ways in which He wants to help you discover His will for you in Christ Jesus. It does not mean you must abandon your normal practice forever; rather God may be putting an extra arrow in your quiver, to help you into the fullness of His will and into greater overcoming.

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.

Paul said he would gladly boast of things that showed his weakness. I guess I am doing that today.

I want to share with you a memory of when I got it wrong. We were holidaying in the North of Scotland staying in a cottage on an estate owned and run by a Christian. I noticed  another resident who looked particularly upset. I thought  I would ask God if He had anything he wanted to say to me that would help her. Instantly a picture came to mind of this young woman washing her clothes in a washing machine and then holding them up to the light, looking very dissatisfied and washing them again, holding them up again, looking very dissatisfied etc. I instantly thought, “Here is someone who does not know they have been washed clean by the blood of Christ. They need assurance of forgiveness.” Armed with the picture God had given, I approached the young woman’s friend. Within minutes of conversation I found out the true meaning of the picture. This sad 19 year old American tourist had lost her luggage en route to Scotland. All she had was the clothes she was wearing which she was having to wash and re wash and re wash. The picture had simply meant that God knew and cared about a 19 year old young woman who did not have all that she needed to be able to enjoy her holiday. Not only had I got the meaning of the picture wrong, but I realised something else as well: He did not seem to want to challenge her with an angry Scottish Presbyterian, “Is not the body more than raiment?” He simply cared.

I got it wrong… but I learned a lesson about the care of God. I need to remember that in this phase of life   on those days when I am more aware of weakness than strength. Our heavenly Father  does not turn everything into a spiritual challenge. Sometimes He just wants us to know He is with us and He cares.

Maybe you need to know that today…

God bless you

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 an inner sort of compass of awareness of how people really think of me as Kenny. It is simply this. I know how they regard me by how they treat my wife. That shows me whether or not they care about me or if their relationship with me is not as genuine as it may at first appear. That rule is not a million miles away from Jesus telling us that our relationship with Him is seen for what it really is  in what we do for the least of His brothers and sisters, those He loves. If we care for them in practical ways then we show that we genuinely love Jesus.

For some reason the thought that sparked that train of thought was a memory of being in a church mission planning group many years ago. It was ecumenical in nature. Most of the gathering were young…ish, in our 20’s and 30’s. There was one older man. I could not help but notice that he was ignored. He didn’t have up to date theories that he had read about in the latest must-read Christian book; he didn’t have a robust presence in the group, many of whom gave the impression that this was really a gathering for the movers and shakers. I remember feeling distressed and I remember trying to draw him in. To this day however I remember with shame that no space was given to his opinions or thoughts, many of which I believed showed the wisdom of the years. In fact he was ignored. I guess that day Jesus looked at that gathering and knew what it thought of Him by how it treated that elderly man. I actually never went back to another planning meeting because of how that man was treated. What was the point? How could God’s blessing be on any of the planning when Jesus was not wanted?

I think that one of the best preachers on the planet is T.D. Jakes.I love listening to him from time to time. He has such wisdom. He has a style that is natural to him and suits him. I believe the reason for his powerful gifting of communication from a human point of view is that as he was growing up he said there were those who dignified his thoughts even as a child by listening to him. That gave him a confidence that he had something worth saying.

I think this blog today has a very simple message: Jesus knows whether you and I have time for him by whether or not we give time to honouring people who are dear to His heart. The story is told of a wonderful man of God, Bishop Festo Kivengere of Uganda. Revival was happening and he was about to set out to a revival meeting, after having had an argument with his wife! He kissed her on the cheek as he left. As he got into his car he heard the Lord say, “Go back into the kitchen and be reconciled with your wife.” He made excuses as to why he had no time to do that. The Lord said it to him again and again more excuses were made. After this exchange of words had gone on for a while,  the Lord said, “OK! You go to the meeting. I will be in the kitchen with your wife!”  The Bishop went back into the Kitchen! He used that day to teach a lesson: revival in the kitchen comes before revival in the church.

Willingness to give time and space to people Jesus loves this very day is a sign to you and to me as to how our relationship with Jesus is going. It seems it is all He looks for as the ultimate evidence  of the genuineness of any claimed discipleship. At the last, some will come before Him boasting of their ministries and miracles and He will say,”I never knew you.” Others who feel perhaps they did nothing very noteworthy will hear the King say, “Come blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world… in as much as you did to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it unto me.”

Perhaps this day you can give time to someone. Perhaps you can listen to them. Perhaps you can give money to them. As I wrote  that last sentence I remember a large gathering of about 12,000 people where I was doing some preaching and teaching: in the course of a week only 23 people had signed up to sponsor a child through “Compassion.” I could not let the week end without making a comment about that in my last morning talk… I don’t know if it had any effect or not! Pride stopped me finding out!!

It is not our place to judge people’s hearts at all. However I told you a few weeks ago that Rev. Jim Graham when he was sharing something from the bible used to pause and say, “I am not making this stuff up! I am only telling you what the Book says!” That is not a bad principle at all, for a preacher or for that matter for a blogger: I am only telling you what the Book says, and what the Book says the King will say one day : “In as much as you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it unto me.” Read it for yourself if you want, just to check I am not making it up. You can find these words of Jesus in Matthew Chapter 25.

May God help you and I to remember Jesus’ words as we go through this day meeting who we meet, welcoming those we welcome, avoiding those we avoid, ignoring those we ignore. What does it all say about where we are with Jesus Himself?

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.

After you have read my proper blog for today, you might like this to help you relax at the start of your working week!

http://devour.com/video/dalek-relaxation-tape/

Kenny

I am used to straddling two worlds – the charismatic and the evangelical. I guess to caricature both, the one seems more obviously slanted towards the Spirit and the other more orientated towards the Word. However even as soon as I have written that I am remembering Dr. R.T. Kendall, a wonderful bible teacher, on the first of several memorable times he came to speak at CLAN Gathering in St. Andrews asking me why I had asked him and John Paul Jackson, who had a strong prophetic ministry, to come as speakers that year. I think my answer may not have been what he was expecting. I said I had asked John Paul Jackson because he was a man of the Word, and I had asked him, R.T., because he was a man open to the Spirit. I stand by what I said then.

However I was thinking today that it is not enough to honour both Word and Spirit in general. Whatever our claim to honour either or both, the proof of that is how deeply any truth or claimed experience is related to the cross of Christ, the very centre of our faith. Does any truth I claim to have seen or encounter I claim to have experienced carry something of the story of the cross? It may show the victory of the cross, or its suffering, it may show the truth of rejection or the truth of acceptance, it may carry the death of Jesus or the life of Jesus or both.

For me this is the great test of orthodoxy. If what I am speaking about from the bible or what I am sharing in terms of charismatic experience cannot ultimately be related to the cross then it is probably bogus and the result of too clever an intellect or too fertile an imagination.

Let me give an example of what I mean. For me one of the most powerful charismatic experiences in my life was meeting with God in the so called Toronto Blessing. People speak for and against that movement and I don’t want to get into that argument, nor will I allow you to use this bog to enter into a debate about that. That would be to misuse this blog for your purposes not the purposes for which I think God called me to start it. There are many sites pro and against The Toronto Blessing, most of them descending eventually into slanging matches achieving nothing. All I can say is that for me the Toronto Blessing was yet another an experience of the cross that I had years earlier at my conversion. It was an experience of the power of the cross to completely bring me into the security and assurance of the Father’s love. It felt as though as I lay on the floor under the power of the Spirit I was looking through a movie camera into the grace of God. The camera drew back a bit and I saw that the grace of God was wider, higher, deeper than I had seen. It drew back some more and I saw it was still wider, still higher, still deeper. It kept drawing back until I understood that I could not understand the depth, width and height of the love of God my Father in Christ Jesus. It was an experience ultimately of the saving and reconciling power of the cross. The face of God the disappointed father or worse the angry judge disappeared and the face of the Father came to the fore. THE TRUTH OF THAT MOMENT, THE POWER OF THAT MOMENT, THAT CHARISMATIC EXPERIENCE OF THE  BIBLICAL TRUTH OF THE CROSS HAS NEVER LEFT ME.

Charismatic friends, it would help our evangelical brothers and sisters if our claimed experiences did not sound like Walt Disney cartoon experiences with not real tie in to the truth of the cross at their foundation or in their fruit. Evangelical friends  it would help our charismatic brothers and sisters if the cross was the centre of all exposition, if everything led to and from there, rather than descending into a rant against liberal and charismatic heresy or a biblical lecture with no movement to or from the experience of the crucifying and resurrecting power of the cross.

The cross is God’s provided way to unity. Evangelicals can often look for unity based on doctrine and theology before being willing to call someone brother or sister. Charismatics perhaps at times only honour someone as such on the basis of some experience of the Spirit, whatever that experience may be called by friend or foe. God invites us to meet at the cross, in truth and experience. It is His ordained meeting point.

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.

For some reason today I found myself remembering the words of a homeless man after a church meeting he was attending with other folk who were homeless.  He said to me, “I tried to go to a church one night, but they said I was not the sort of person their church was looking for.” He was a stone the builders rejected.

I remember the fury I felt closely followed by a conviction that the sin of that church was my sin at least in measure. How often in the past have I shown favouritism to those who could bring something valuable to the church in terms of helping to build my vision? Thankfully God has healed me of the sin of the builders over the years. I delight now to find the presence of God’s Kingdom and His grace in the fellowship of those who could easily be passed over and be the objects of rejection by the world, certainly, and sadly with almost equal certainty be the objects of rejection in many churches.

Minister, Leader, Passionate Christian; there is nothing wrong with having the eye, the vision of a builder. In that you share something of Christ’s heart and vision for He told us that He too is a builder. However, if you have the heart of a builder, make sure you don’t fall into the sin of the builder too, valuing people mostly for what they can contribute to what you are building. People will eventually feel that and the building may well collapse. Anyway, if the rejected do not have a place of honour in whatever we are building, perhaps it is time to look at the plans again…

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.

Over my younger years as a believer any time I heard sermons on “The Lord’s Prayer” I was told that of course it should not really be called “The Lord’s Prayer” but “The Disciples Prayer.” Such cleverness impressed me as a teenager and I would stroke my as yet non existent beard and moustache and nod gravely and seriously as I took delight in that little intellectual morsel and noted it down so I could impress others with it. One of the reasons given for that re-naming was that Jesus was sinless and so of course could not pray for forgiveness of His sins. However wise that sounds, it is actually quite dumb. I have lived long enough to see that preachers and teachers who criticise long standing traditions are rarely right in what they say, though occasionally of course they can be. On the occasions where they are, they can indeed change the course of history ,as for example the Reformation bears witness. Such moments though, are rare. I have usually had to repent of thinking I have seen some novel interpretation of some Scripture that no one else seems to have seen ,which I have then inflicted on a long suffering congregation!

The most useful quote I remember from a book on Church History by a writer whose name I cannot remember is “Heresy is born out of the itch for something new.” The correct name for the prayer if we need to name it is indeed “The Lord’s Prayer.” Why? For this reason: Jesus numbered Himself with the transgressors, so of course He could pray “Father forgive us our sins.” He is as intimately one with His imperfect and sinful followers as the head is joined to the body.

I was challenged by my own thought for today’s blog to look at how I pray for the Church in Scotland. I am so quick to see what I consider faults and wrongs in my own denomination and in others. It is something I dislike about myself intensely and quite often cry to the Lord saying, “Lord, will this ever die in me?” The challenge of the fact that “The Lord’s Prayer” should indeed be called “The Lord’s Prayer” is this: do I see the sins of the church, whether of my own or another denomination as “our” sins? Do I pray to “Our Father” or do I always simply pray to “My Father” for “them,” disassociating myself from the failings, the faithlessness, the disobedience, the imperfections, the impurities in doctrine and practice, the lack of zeal, the moral compromise and worldliness that I see in “them”? Do I see their problems as “theirs,” their needs as “theirs,” their worries as “theirs,” their struggles in faith as “theirs” while I sail on unspotted on a spiritual adrenalin surge, exhilarated by my ability to discern the errors of other believers, other leaders, other churches?

One of my favourite bible stories is the story of the Tax collector and the Pharisee at prayer. You can read it in Luke Chapter 18. If anyone could have genuinely prayed the Pharisee’s prayer legitimately, “I thank Thee that I am not like other men, robbers, evil doers, or even like this crooked tax collector over here… etc” it would have been Jesus. I cannot prove it but I think you would often have found Him instead beating His breast and using similar words to the corrupt tax collector, “Father have mercy upon us.”

To rename “The Lord’s Prayer,” “The Disciples prayer” shows that while we may have a perfect doctrine of the Atonement we have a very imperfect doctrine of the Incarnation. God’s Son was numbered with the transgressors, not just by His enemies but by His own self-identification with us. It is why He came. He is not ashamed to call us His brothers and sisters. One day when all His flock are gathered together He will say with joy as He presents us to The Father, “Here am I and the children You have given me!”

Yesterday, Today and Forever, Jesus is the same. If you could listen into the prayers of the ascended Christ, He so carries you and I in his heart that at times you would hear Him, the Sinless One ,who lives and reigns in the power of an endless life, praying for you and for me and for His Church thus: “Father, help us in our weakness. Forgive us our sins, Father. Give us all we need for this day. Help us to honour your Name. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil!”

It was indeed His own prayer that He taught us to pray.

May you know the fellowship of Christ’s Presence and sense the closeness of your fellow believers the next time you close the door and pray in secret. He is faithful to His calling as our High Priest who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities and so is able to deal gently with us. May we be faithful to our calling to be a Kingdom of Priests and carry one another in our hearts in gentle hopeful love into the presence of “Our Father” and join our prayers to Christ’s perfect intercessions.

“God bless us, every one” is a pretty good prayer!

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 thinking today of a couple of things that have been said to me repeatedly over the years after I have preached whether in a church setting or a conference setting; one by the Lord and the other by the Lord’s people. I want to share them with you in the hope that if you have any sphere of service or ministry, however small or extensive they might help you. Please know that I recognise we are all different, and I hate ever sounding like an expert because I am not; nonetheless I pass on these two words for you to think about.

From The Lord to me: “Get more simple still.” This was something that I believe I heard from God on a regular basis for the first 25 years of preaching, till eventually I got there. I used to ask Him every so often if there was anything He had to say to me that would help me bless more people more deeply in my preaching Sunday by Sunday and for all that there were occasional additional words to me, the thing I believe He said to me most often was, “Get more simple still.” So I leave that with you to think about.

The Second thing I want to leave with you has been said repeatedly by the Lord’s people, lost and found: “I really appreciate your gentleness.” Despite what I said above about us all being different, there is a charge laid upon all of us as we seek to live for The Lord and serve Him: ”Let your gentleness be evident to all.” (Philippians Chapter 4 verse 5.) These words were written by Paul not to particular people with particular personalities but to all people in a local church whatever their personality make-up. Usually when people have mentioned appreciation of gentleness they have gone on to speak about the effect of that upon them with a reference to some sort of healing that had been brought to them. Friends, there is not much gentleness in the world. Sadly often there is not much gentleness in the church. More than often there is not gentleness on the conference scene but a lot of shouting through microphones, strutting on stages and sweating, which somehow is believed to indicate anointing. It stirs up passion but doesn’t do much beyond that. Miraculous healings that happen in such a charged atmosphere seem to have equally miraculously disappeared by the next morning. So I leave this with you too: “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” Is there no place for taking hold of the Kingdom violently? Yes, but keep your violence for where it should be directed namely against spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places, rather than for impressing a gathering that you are truly God’s man or woman for the hour. Keep the fist shaking for there not for those you minister to, but remember if all that you have is fist shaking without anointing you might come a cropper. Demons recognise the difference between fist shaking, strutting, shouting and sweating compared to anointing. They are not as gullible as we are.

So to sum up. 2 words given repeatedly to me that might be worth thinking about though you and I might be very different in many ways:

“Get more simple still.”

“I appreciate your gentleness.”

God bless you to love and serve the Lord

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 thinking today of getting a new bible in which I would underline nothing! The reason? Well, I was remembering something that Juan Carlos Ortis said in his book “Disciple.” He said that there were five gospels; Mathew, Mark, Luke, John and the one written by Saint Evangelical! The last one is made up of all those bits we underline in our bibles. Saint Liberal and Saint Progressive, Saint Missional Movement, Saint Fresh Expressions and Saint Renewal all have their own bibles too. Ortis’s suggestion was it would be good to go back and read the bits in our bibles we have not underlined, that we hear the Word of God there.

I think we are all a bit selective in reading the Bible, or at least we give emphasis to certain things we read and only turn half an ear to some other themes that ruffle our feathers a bit. So that is why I am thinking of having an unmarked bible for the first time in my Christian life. If it is all the Word of God, it all matters.

The immediate spur to such a thought was reading these words from Philippians: “Do all things without grumbling or complaining.” I don’t think I ever underlined these words in any past bibles I have owned. I found life in them today. Perhaps there is life in them for you. Grumbling and complaining get us nowhere except into wandering around in a desert in a fellowship of grumbling and complaining until the grumbling and complaining is burned out. It is a waste of energy and time that could be otherwise used. I was thinking today of how often after the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland I would end up grumbling, as evangelicals often understandably do after the Assembly. The grumbling usually lasted about 3 weeks. That means that since my licensing I have spent two years of my life and ministry grumbling and complaining over that alone! Fruitless!

I meet Christians and indeed ministers who seem to live in the desert of grumbling and complaining most of their days. If we believe that God is in control of our steps when we humbly commit our ways to him, then let’s get on with who we are called to be and what we are called to do without complaining and grumbling believing that this is the will of God for us in Christ Jesus. It is a happier more fruitful way to be.

Maybe I should end with a particular word for my fellow ministers and other friends in the C of S. If you cant stay and serve without grumbling and complaining, it is maybe time to go and see if you can serve somewhere else without grumbling and complaining. You will not bless your people or yourself by stoking the fires of grumbling and complaining in yourself or your congregation. That does not mean there is no place for godly mourning, but that is quite a different thing. Into that God speaks his promise, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” Grumbling leads to the desert. Mourning leads to Revival.

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 guess we are all different. I am saying that in case you take an odd dislike of mine too personally: I don’t like symmetry of the 2 identical candlesticks each side of the fireplace type! Please don’t be embarrassed or angry if your attention has just gone to your mantelpiece… it is just a Kenny thing but it is real and it is strong. 2 candlesticks on either side of a mantelpiece has the same distress, nerve jangling effect upon me as the sound of fingernails on a blackboard causes to others! Weird I know, but there it is. I am so glad that truly symmetrical faces are quite rare otherwise being a pastor meeting people one to one could have been immensely difficult  for me over the years!

I am glad Paul abandons the language of direct symmetry quite often as he writes. He tells us  in Romans for example that where sin abounded, God’s  grace abounded  all the more. The thought is not that the extent of grace and the extent of sin are somehow equidistant  but opposite points from some central point on  a scale , or equal but opposite points you can plot on a  graph. His thought is more along the lines of compare the size of a mouse with the size of an elephant! In that same letter there is another mouse to elephant moment, when he tells us that he is convinced that , “Our current sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory which shall be  revealed in us who are called according to God’s purpose”

Well, today, as I waited to see how God would led me about this blog, it was another mouse to elephant verse  that came to mind: Paul is in prison and he is writing to the Philippians, wondering out loud in his letter whether he will be put to death or be released. He is pretty sure that he will be released and go on living on earth as he is needed. He also says that it is “win win” for him either way because, as every believer can say, ”For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” However he also says if he was indeed to depart this earthly scene and be with Christ, for him as for any believer that would be “faaaaaaaaaar better!” No equal measurements, no equal and opposite symmetry.

There is no easy way to break the thrust of this blog to you. I am thinking of those of you who have had to face the untimely deaths to those you have loved and who loved you; those who left this life not peacefully after a long and full life, but perhaps with a great struggle, perhaps at what seemed faaaaar too early a stage, when they had all to live for and when they had much to contribute to life still. I think the most difficult deaths I have had to deal with pastorally have been the deaths of children or young people or babies. Even within the family of faith such things are hard to bear. So much hope, so many sincere prayers, so much promise, so much “life” just ended.  One of my first funerals as a young minister was for a young and beautiful 12 year old girl, a triplet,  who was knocked down in my island parish of Stronsay. My last funeral before retiring was for a much wanted and prayed for baby . Then of course there are the husbands, the wives, the brothers, sisters, the close friends whose deaths came so suddenly, too quickly to prepare for as best as one can prepare for such happenings.

I am talking within the framework of the family of Christ. Can we believe that it is always true that “to depart and be with the Lord is far better?” Sometimes despite tears we can say a genuine “yes.” At other times perhaps our “yes and Amen” is a bit more shaky.

One of the great things about blogging for me is it not only gives an outlet for whatever I used to do in preaching or teaching, but it gives an overtly pastoral outlet as well – though for me pastoring and teaching should be part of the same thing, I hasten to add. Tonight, I simply want to pray for those of you who follow Christ but who feel immense pain and even anger as you think of this claim that to be with Christ is far better.  I will do exactly that  as soon as i have posted this blog. I pray that somehow the God who helped Paul to say, write and believe that claim with great assurance will help you too.

If I were writing this for someone outside the family of  faith, my prayers after writing would be even more pained. As Kenneth Steven says in one of his poems, in this all grown up world where we have abandoned God, we have to cope with the death of children  (or any untimely death or tragedy) on our own now. At least, as believers in Christ we have someone to bring our “whys” and tears to, who can help us cope. “Whys” and tears for us are not a cry in the dark, but a cry in the ear of our Father…It is a Heavenly Father thing; He can’t help but see and hear and feel.

God Bless

Kenny

A story of connections of thought today! Thought 1: I found myself thinking about “Roman Camp Mary,” better known as Mary Magdalene. What perhaps we don’t realise is that Magdalene is really more like a nick name, a name of scorn. Magdala was where the camp of the Roman occupying forces was situated. So “Roman Camp Mary” gives an indication of how Mary was regarded. Perhaps it was the Romans who used her who called her that, perhaps it was the Jews who sought to shame her who gave her such a nickname.

Somehow thinking about Mary who plied her trade amongst the Occupying forces led to Thought 2; my mind wandered away to thinking about what it must be like to live under an occupying power. Some of the places where this blog is read were indeed occupied by the Nazis during the years of the last war. There may even be some who read this who are actually old enough to remember from personal experience what that was like. Whatever, I would imagine that each infringement of freedoms would have been sorely felt, no matter how many freedoms remained.

That led to Thought 3; I remembered when God set me free from what had been an occupying force stopping me from entering fully into the freedom with which Christ has set His people free. For years I laboured under some compulsion that I had to have a growing church and I had to have a “successful ministry” – I had views about what that looked like which I have thankfully abandoned. For years though this vision of success occupied my thinking. As a result my view of God became skewed. I felt He must surely have been disappointed with me. My view of Him was that I saw Him as a dissatisfied judge. My view of the church became negative, critical, jaundiced. In a moment of time I was set free in the mid 90’s. I didn’t know I needed to be set free. It was only once I was set free that I realised how captive I had been. In a moment, heaviness was gone. The face of the disappointed judge was gone to be replaced by the Father who simply loved me because He loved me. I felt the true power of the cross in an experiential way. I remember distinctly the feeling of something leaving from the very depths of my being and thank God though it has sometimes hovered around, it has never returned to take over territory in my life again. The occupation was over! I was set free to rejoice in the love of my Father, and set free to resist a lie which previously had rampaged through my life unchallenged.

I don’t mean to be needlessly controversial, but all I will say is bar one person who became a Christian on the same night they were delivered, all my other experiences of deliverance from evil powers, though not many, have involved the setting free of Christians form enemy occupation.

Thought 4 – for you to think about; what occupies you? is there anything that has an unhealthy control in your life that to a certain extent determines how you act, how you feel, how you relate to God, to others and to life, and to yourself? It may be obviously harmful of course, but it may not be obviously harmful at first. Remember what occupied me seemed a good thing, the desire to have a successful ministry, but that thought represented enemy chains and robbed me of my freedom in God. Sadly I meet many Christians who at least in part seem under enemy occupation. Sometimes, indeed most commonly the manifestation of occupation is a fear of one sort or another often becasue of past events or dysfunctional significant relationships. It may of course be that there has been some involvement in the occult or surrender of control to drugs or to alcohol; it may be something morally askew that has allowed an occupation by the enemy of a certain aspect of life, but there need not be a moral lapse. I think there are many demons around who seem in terms of their human host to be perfectly moral and orthodox in their manifestation, even defending the truth of God to the hilt. Such is the enemy who appears as an angel of light. When such a spirit is occupying a preacher or teacher, or any believer, they may speak words of grace perhaps but actually they sound more like teachers of the law, quick to point out fault, gatekeepers and judges seeing the demerits in everyone, deciding and pronouncing who is in God’s favour and who is not. As a result, the one flock of God becomes disturbed and sometimes decimated. I sometimes have the feeling that this has caused particular carnage between the various strains of Presbyterianism in Scotland, whatever its manifestation may look like in other countries and cultures.

Thought 5; does the love of Christ and that alone occupy you and I? His love for His Father; His love for His Father’s truth and words and works; His love for His bride; His love for the lost; His love for you? May we all be free with the freedom with which Christ has set us free and let’s help one another into that freedom too.

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.

Dear fellow ministers of Christ. A couple of thoughts. Perhaps we need to repent of the vision of reforming the Church of Scotland? Was that vision birthed in humility or on the strength of an at one time rise in the evangelical constituency? Jesus didn’t reform Judaism. He simply proclaimed truth. He did not seek a majority in the Sanhedrin. He just spoke truth, washed feet, loved sinners and pursued his call to the end despite the mockery that was designed to make him look ridiculous! Fellow evangelicals why don’t we try it Jesus way and trust what is not of God will fall. Turn your ear fully to the call of God. I am now in the position of retiring through ill health. I can only say my thoughts and prayers are with you.

Despite what others may say we have not yet seen the whites of the eyes of THE Enemy. Fortunately Jesus has. May He help us stand our ground and not turn and flee come what may.

Kenny Borthwick

Sundays are still quite difficult for me since stopping preaching. At the same time they help to make this central truth all the more certain: “I am my Beloved’s and He is mine and His banner over me is LOVE!”

When you have “one of those days” remember nothing can make a dent in that wonderful truth. Remind yourself of it often. That can help to remind you that “one of those days” days along with every other day is the day that the Lord has made so we can rejoice and be glad in it!

God bless

Kenny

My thoughts go towards preachers on Saturday nights and Sundays for understandable reasons. I hope when I speak to preachers I don’t sound like a boring know-it-all…but I will take that risk. I would never dare to write a book about preaching but I have been preaching since 1979,so I guess if there is nothing to pass on for people to take or leave from the experience of those years, it would be a poor do! So, here goes…

The main theme of this blog: please, preacher, don’t make too much of people’s reactions of praise or anger. Of course if you give these things no thought your are probably a psychopath rather than a preacher!  Remember it is the task of a teacher to help people understand rather than get bitter  and angry at them for not understanding or appreciating what  you are saying. It is your job to help the sheep move from A to B, it is not the sheep’s job! I hope you are whole enough to be aware of others; empathetic enough to be as loving and sensitive as you can be as you declare truth;  and secure enough in the love of your Heavenly Father not  to attach too much weight to praise or anger. Jesus in John 5 makes a distinction between seeking honour and praise from one another and seeking the honour and praise that comes from the only God, telling us to seek the latter.  Insecure preachers who lack security in the love of God seek the former, indeed hunger after it with an insatiable hunger and will indulge in amazing antics to get it! I hope you can rest in your Heavenly Father’s  honouring of you as His beloved one, this Sunday. Preach and pastor, lead  and pray from that place always. Only then can we be faithful ministers, whatever the main thrust of our ministry that we have been entrusted with.

So go out there this Sunday and speak the truth of God with as much simplicity and grace as you can. You do not need eloquence. But I hope you have prepared and are not sloppy. The Bible extols the value of playing an instrument not any old way but skilfully unto the Lord! If you do all of that, then don’t worry too much if the sheep bleat! It is what sheep do…

I mentioned a few blogs back a couple of  John Wimber prayers that I often used before preaching, especially on those Sundays where there seemed to be not a moment’s peace before getting up to lead and preach: “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God…” and “HELP!” There is a third prayer of my own  that I often prayed on  Sundays that is not as funny, sounds more Presbyterian and Scottish than Charismatic or American, but was as equally sincere  and not as falsely grave or pious  as it may sound to you at first reading: “Lord, help me to honour You as I seek to bless Your sheep. Bring honour to Your Name, O Lord.” You can use that prayer if you want, it is not copyrighted! It is not a myth or a pious hope to say that He really does honour those who  seek to honour Him.

God bless you brother or sister preacher, and God bless doubly those in your congregations who faithfully pray for you and God bless many times more those who can’t stand you or the gospel with fresh ears and hearts!

Kenny

P.S. I just want to update this with some words from a Daily Readings book of  Henri Nouwen’s  writings that I read after I had written this blog. I suppose it is possible that some of us may think that to care only about what our Heavenly father thinks of us could make us insesnsitive. With that thought in mind here are the words from H. Nouwen:

“Jesus is called Emmanuel which means “God-with-us” (see Matthew 1: 22-23). The great paradox of Jesus’ life is that he, whose words and actions are in no way influenced by human blame or praise but are completely dependent on God’s will, is more “with” us than any other human being.

Jesus’ compassion, his deep feeling-with us, is possible because his life is guided not by human respect but only by the love of his heavenly Father.“

Simple but brilliant! I like it!

K

Many of you who read this blog will have learned today that the last ever CLAN gathering takes place this Summer. It is always difficult in church and wider church life to know when to stop something. I have mixed feelings hearing about CLAN coming to an end as for many years I was part of the leadership team. I remember vividly when God gave me a dream about the name and the purpose of that Gathering.  Hundreds of churches and thousands of belivers from every postal are in the land and every conceivable type of church rallied around that vision for many years. It proved to be almost like an umbrella under which many could gather despite any differences of church practice etc.,  though not an umbrella which stopped the rain of God’s blessing falling again and again over the years. It has been a humble and yet enormous blessing to church life throughout Scotland. There are mininstries and chuches floursihing today that would testify to the encouragment CLAN gave them to step into new things for God and to expect great things from God. However I am confident of “the seed falling into the ground and dying” principle that we see in nature and we find being spoken about in Scripture. When a seed falls into the ground and dies it bears much fruit. If it does not go through that dying process then it remains a single seed. I truly believe  that which has been of God in CLAN will indeed continue to bear fruit for the present and future purposes of God in Scotland and pray that God will honour the decision of the current leadership for things to stop.

Actually, the principle of the seed dying and bearing fruit is one that I have seen in action in my own life in recent months. I have not got the health to preach at the moment but somehow what that represented in terms of calling has been through a metamorphosis and resulted in a blog which reaches more people and countries than my preaching from a pulpit or a conference platform ever would. By the way, when I say that, I have not discounted preaching again in time to come! Many are praying for my healing. I am simply stressing the seed dying and bearing fruit actually works.

Now, remember not every blog will seem relevant to everyone equally every day!  I guess today’s blog leads me to ask, “ Is there something you should be stopping? Something you have been doing in church or even as a church which needs to come to an end?” Perhaps you have been wondering about a question like that and this blog may be part of God’s leading or guiding. I take my hat off to those who have served in a role in church faithfully over the course of many years. That is commendable and yet it bothers me in church life that sometimes we don’t give people the chance to stop doing something. Whatever that “something” may be, it gets tired and the people enabling it to happen get tired too. I found that there was a level of guilt associated with my decision to step down form being a minister. I couldn’t actually do it without my G.P., the Ministries Council of the Church of Scotland, the elders of the congregation as well as those close to me giving me permission to stop. Perhaps this blog will be a permission giver for you.

Someone commented not long ago as a response to a blog, that they disliked a phrase that has become common in church; “Lord, we give you permission to do this,” whatever “this” may be. I am with him on that. I have an intense dislike of any theology, any spoken words that make us too big and God blasphemously small. God can do what He wants when He wants with or without or permission, with us giving our will or against our will! I have met people who were converted totally against their own will and intention. God did it! However, the language of permission is appropriate when it comes to you and me. If, like me, the idea of stopping doing something cuts across the grain and feels unbearably uncomfortable I pray you too might find permission givers along the path if this blog seems to speak to where you are at. May that help to reassure you that indeed God is saying to you, “This is the way; walk ye in it…”

… and may there be extra grace if you are a church leader announcing this weekend that something that has been a treasured part of congregational  life is going to stop!

God bless you this day and always

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 talking with my beautiful daughter Sarah today over a coffee. Somehow the father daughter conversation got on to deliverance! I have not been used in direct face to face deliverance that often in the course of my ministry but the few times that has occurred have taught me a lot. I was remembering one of the most dramatic encounters today: a girl who could not read or write, who was hearing voices saying they were going to kill her. How did I know it was not mental illness which clearly can have the same symptoms? That is where we need the gift of discernment otherwise we could really cause damage. The Holy Spirit bore His own witness to me that this was demonic and it was going to be dealt with that very night. She was indeed set marvellously free. However I don’t really want to go into the story of the deliverance. What I mentioned to Sarah was that this girl told me that when she saw Christians in the supermarket she felt power coming from them and knew they could help her somehow and get this thing away.

Dear blog readers, in Christ you have more authority and power than you know. Perhaps an opportunity to stand in your authority in Christ will come your way this day or soon. May you know at that moment that Christ in you is greater than anything you face. Be assured of the absolute supremacy of the Lordship of Christ.

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 always encouraging to get feedback on blogs. I don’t usually follow them up in terms of taking ideas for future blogs from them, but a friend , Rich Johnson who heads up a ministry in Christian Mindfulness, who has had a medical condition for many years suggested that there is much teaching around about healing but not much around about suffering and death. He said that we actually need a theology of suffering and death. It doesn’t sound too cheery a subject but many who read this blog may be looking for that too, especially as there seems to be renewed emphasis in recent years tending towards believing everybody is meant to be healed.

I never want to discourage faith for healing, nor am I academic enough to offer a theology of suffering and death, but I am in the situation of having an illness when the part of the church I most belong to believes in healing. That belief is actually becoming stronger and more vocal which can leave people like me feeling a bit vulnerable. I think it is time for charismatic Christians to come out of the closet and say boldly,” I am a Charismatic christian who believes in healing, who is still praying for it, who has been prayed with for healing countless times in conferences, in local church, by big names on the healing scene and by many more unknown believers, but I am still ill!”

Well, actually if that describes you, you are in the company with those in heaven now. Those who have died and gone to be with the Lord have not yet experienced healing of their bodies. Their bodies  are still here on earth. Just as there are those in heaven who are living there with the injustice of being martyred for Jesus, well there are countless more who are still unhealed. What do I mean? Well, somewhere or other, whether in officially claimed sites or elsewhere, Paul’s body is still here on earth. It is headless, and modern medical science if they found the body would be able to tell us what his thorn on the flesh was and settle the argument once and for all. Paul’s body was sown into the earth in dishonour. The day is still future when it will be raised in glory.

In other words, there are a lot of unhealed people in heaven. For heaven too, the Kingdom of heaven is already here but not yet. My father is one of them for example. He knows no pain, he knows no suffering, but the dust of his body is still around on earth. In the joy of heaven now, he waits his final healing.

So for you my bothers and sisters who are feeling left behind in the rising insistence that everyone is supposed to be healed, well if you are not  then don’t worry; you are experiencing on earth what is reality in heaven. I am not sure how many healed people there are there. Jesus and mabye Elijah,  perhaps Moses and oh yes, Enoch. That is about it. Everyone else is of course  rejoicing. With Paul they have discovered that it is better to be with the Lord than here on earth!  But with Paul in the Lord’s nearer presence they  are saying, “How long O Lord? How long until our bodies are healed  and raised incorruptible, how long until justice reigns? How long O Lord?” Heaven is not yet perfect. Saints on earth and saints in heaven are one in this: we are a waiting people.

Away with faulty notions of what “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” really means!

Your battling blogger

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 was one of these days that was not great for me.I didn’t have the energy to get up until lunch time, went out and about but was glad to come home and rest again. However, I did feel the Lord was with me, that in the deepest sense everything is OK and there is no need to be unduly alarmed. Furthermore as I lay in bed in the early evening just resting, I felt the Lord speak to me. Verses from 2 Timothy came to mind. Paul is speaking to Timothy and he has to tell his son in the faith this: ‘Do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner.” (2 Timothy Chapter 1 verse 8) That is actually an astonishing verse. Effectively Paul was telling Timothy that as he proclaimed that Jesus is Lord, the one who has conquered sin and death and hell on our behalf and is now seated at the right hand of God in the place of highest honour, he wasn’t to be embarrassed or find it awkward that one of the chief representatives of Jesus’ reign, namely Paul, was an ambassador in chains awaiting death. Can you get the idea? Ambassadors in chains are hardly a good advert that Jesus was the Christ on the throne of the universe, that He is indeed Lord!

In a world where learning and physical or military prowess seemed to count for a lot, someone in chains would be despised and certainly any philosophy or deity he stood for would be despised. So, Paul could have been seen as an embarrassment to the cause, a liability.  His condition could be used as an argument by the opponents of the Christian message to pour scorn upon the idea that Jesus once crucified was now “Lord.”

Sometimes, not often but sometimes, I have met people who are anything from mildly confused to red-faced embarrassed by the fact of my ill health. I have stood for the fact that healing is a sign that Jesus is Lord and His already here not yet fully here Kingdom is real, but I am not healed. It is no embarrassment at all to me because I really do believe that the Kingdom is already here but just as truly not fully here. Biblical faith is believing what the bible says rather than believing what we wished it would say. However to those who believe that in heaven there is no sickness  now therefore on earth there should be no sickness now, well I do sense the embarrassment they sometimes feel talking with me. I would have hoped rather the fact I am not healed, as yet, might make them question whether the argument no sickness in heaven now so no sickness on earth now is indeed true, but ideas are hard to budge especially when they have charismatic people behind them endorsing them.

I thought it was really sad a few years ago to see that one of the foremost proponents of “health and wealth” secretly had an operation on his knee. He didn’t want anyone to know about it. I am not accusing the man of being hypocritical. I don’t think he is and there is much about him I admire, but does what he did mean he was embarrassed or ashamed of himself or feared being a cause of embarrassment?

Dear blog readers, the fact that at the centre of our faith is the Son of God on a cross should make us aware that one of the central beliefs of Christianity is that we are called to go through things which allow the world to mock our claims for Christ and our faith in Him. “Where is this God of yours” is a taunt that will be thrown at every genuine believer sooner or later in the face of suffering or injustice of some sort that they are experiencing in life. I am sad though if you have experienced a similar taunt from your brothers and sisters in the Lord speaking with insensitivity to you.

So today, I praise God for those of you who are ill and have not been healed; I praise Him for those of you who know that your Heavenly Father provides and yet still find your bank account needs  month to month resuscitation, and needs it  just after the end of week one of the month; I praise God for those of you who believe God makes promises to believers and their children but have seen your children going completely off the rails: you are not an embarrassment to the Lord, He is not ashamed of you, nor am I if that is any small consolation. Please do not be ashamed or awkward or embarrassed about yourself. Thank you for putting the shame of the cross in the place of highest honour and for challenging a cheap understanding of the Lordship of Christ. You are my heroes! The Kingdom needs you. Your King needs 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.

This may be the shortest blog I ever write. Are you waiting for a sign from heaven that you don’t really need? When I eventually embarked on the process of stepping down from being a parish minister , ultiamately the thought within my mind that helped me to do that was, “Kenny you are no longer fit to do a week’s work for a week’s wage.”

I just felt today that perhaps there are some of you who read this blog who need to make a decision based on good old fashioned common sense. Being able to think things through and come to a decision is part of God’s common grace to  humanity as much as the sun and the rain. Of course God can lead us at times to do something that makes no sense to those looking on or even to ourselves, but let’s not make that into a principle or a law. Today, is there some decision you need to make based on common sense?

Just a thought,

Kenny

I didn’t expect this thought to swim to the surface. I kept on thinking it was too small a thought  for a blog and instead of catching it, it should be allowed to swim about until it was a bit bigger, then I could reel it in and serve it up. However, this small thought in the form of a memory seems to be insisting on being the “catch of the day.”

The thought, the memory is this: I was at a Church of Scotland Conference where a wonderful parish minister and former moderator of the Church of Scotland, The Very Rev John Miller was speaking. He had been the minster of an area of Glasgow that would be termed a Priority area; an area which by many different measurements would be considered an area of deprivation. He told us all  that he was once asked by a six year old  girl in one of the Primary Schools in the parish,  “What does a minister do?” Maybe you are thinking, “Actually I have always wondered that too!”  Well, John Miller  thought for a moment and then he said this in reply to that wee girl: “A minister helps people to know there is away to be happy, even after bad things have happened to  them.” When I heard him say that I felt angered. In fact I was fuming! I sat there thinking to myself, “But what about the preaching of the gospel? What about the declaration of the Kingdom? What about the preaching and teaching of The Word…. what about… what about…?”  I   felt  such a definition of parish ministry was woefully inadequate. However I felt the anointing of God on what he was saying and I have learned that anointing teaches  us all things truly, whereas our own minds and thought processes can be so faulty.  I knew that God approved of what John Miller was saying, however much it angered me! By the time I went to bed that evening I was weeping because I sensed the sheer beauty and loveliness of Christ in what he said to that six year old. Over the years since, it has become one of my favourite definitions of parish ministry and moreover it seems to accurately sum up what my ministry, particularly my time  in Wester Hailes, has largely been about. Sadly, even by the age of 6, there are so many people who need to hear someone telling them there is indeed a way to be happy … Maybe you were one such 6 year old and the 6 year old within you still needs to hear that 50 or 60 or 70 years on…

So, that’s it for today; the memory and the thought. “There is a way to be happy even after bad things have happened.” I simply give it to you along with some sentences about why it would not go away, all beginning with “Perhaps…”

Perhaps, quite simply, bad things have happened to you and you need to know that with Jesus there can be a way to be happy again. “Though weeping endures for the night, joy comes in the morning.” Jesus really can give us “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” It is my job as a minister to tell you that and pray you will experience it to be true.

Perhaps you will need to be a minister today, and bring an assurance of the possibility of happiness to another person, lend them your faith in that truth when they have no faith in it for themselves…

Perhaps, if you are a parish minister or church pastor  you need to rethink what ministry is about for you…

Well, there are more sentences I could have given beginning with “perhaps.” The danger is that if I suggest too many you might not think for yourself what this thought for today maybe has to say to you,  so I simply leave it between you and the Lord to think about.

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 didn’t expect this thought to swim to the surface. I kept on thinking it was too small a thought  for a blog and instead of catching it, it should be allowed to swim about until it was a bit bigger, then I could reel it in and serve it up. However, this small thought in the form of a memory seems to be insisting on being the “catch of the day.”

The thought, the memory is this: I was at a Church of Scotland Conference where a wonderful parish minister and former moderator of the Church of Scotland, The Very Rev John Miller was speaking. He had been the minster of an area of Glasgow that would be termed a Priority area; an area which by many different measurements would be considered an area of deprivation. He told us all  that he was once asked by a six year old  girl in one of the Primary Schools in the parish,  “What does a minister do?” Maybe you are thinking, “Actually I have always wondered that too!”  Well, John Miller  thought for a moment and then he said this in reply to that wee girl: “A minister helps people to know there is away to be happy, even after bad things have happened to  them.” When I heard him say that I felt angered. In fact I was fuming! I sat there thinking to myself, “But what about the preaching of the gospel? What about the declaration of the Kingdom? What about the preaching and teaching of The Word…. what about… what about…?”  I   felt  such a definition of parish ministry was woefully inadequate. However I felt the anointing of God on what he was saying and I have learned that anointing teaches  us all things truly, whereas our own minds and thought processes can be so faulty.  I knew that God approved of what John Miller was saying, however much it angered me! By the time I went to bed that evening I was weeping because I sensed the sheer beauty and loveliness of Christ in what he said to that six year old. Over the years since, it has become one of my favourite definitions of parish ministry and moreover it seems to accurately sum up what my ministry, particularly my time  in Wester Hailes, has largely been about. Sadly, even by the age of 6, there are so many people who need to hear someone telling them that. Maybe you were one such 6 year old and the 6 year old within you still needs to hear that 50 or 60 or 70 years on…

And that is the memory and the thought. “There is a way to be happy even after bad things have happened.” I simply give it to you along with some sentences about why it would not go away, all beginning with “Perhaps…”

Perhaps, quite simply, bad things have happened to you and you need to know that with Jesus there can be a way to be happy again. “Though weeping endures for the night, joy comes in the morning.” Jesus really can give us “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” It is my job as a minister to tell you that and pray you will experience it to be true.

Perhaps you will need to be a minister today, and bring an assurance of the possibility of happiness to another person, lend them your faith in that truth when they have no faith in it for themselves…

Perhaps, if you are a parish minister or church pastor  you need to rethink what ministry is about for you…

Well, there are more sentences I could have given beginning with “perhaps.” The danger is that if I suggest too many you might not think for yourself what this thought for today maybe has to say to you,  so I simply leave it between you and the Lord to think about.

(This was really a thought being written on Tuesday night to be sent out on Wednesday. Somehow though I feel it is to go out tonight, as well as tomorrow… so here it is, a few hours earlier than planned.)

God Bless,

Kenny

For the first time I realised last night how precious the opportunity afforded to me by this blog really is; to be able to share the Word of Life in this way is a joy, but I found myself praying for those of you who read it with a new sense of responsibility. “What do I really want for those who read this?”  was the simple question I asked myself. Well, I hope you are blessed by the words and experiences I share, but I want this blog to be more than reading words like reading a menu. I want you to taste and see that the Lord is good. I want you to know Living Water bubbling up in fresh measure within you. I actually hope these blogs help you to encounter God in fresh ways, or at least create a longing after the Living God, as the deer pants for streams of water. It is always a slightly risky thing when one writes of one’s spiritual experiences as I do quite regularly. That can either encourage faith or it can discourage folk at the same time. A feeling can arise, “Lord, if you met Kenny in this way you can meet me in this way!” Conversely it may be that you feel at times reading these blogs, “Why has nothing like that happened to me? What is wrong with me?”

Let me just say that blogs like Christian books can be deceiving. It is so easy to give a false impression unintentionally. What I mean is that a blog or a book gives you the chance to tell your best stories. You can do the same when you are a conference speaker away from home. That can give the impression that amazing encounters with God happen to you  every day. It can lead to people expecting too much when they meet you and being disappointed by you or your ministry!  I am actually very ordinary and most of my Christian Life and my ministry is very ordinary and run of the mill. Most of the time, in fact the vast majority of the time I simply go by the Bible and by faith in what I read there. However at the same time I don’t want to hide the fact that God has at times broken through into my life in very tangible and palpable ways. Indeed part of my praying for you last night – quite briefly I have to say, but with at least a touch of fervour –  is that over the course of your life  you will have times where God would meet you in such power and presence that you will find yourself saying what I have said at such moments  when they have happened to me; “Oh, it’s real! It is all real!” I know you know “it” is real but nonetheless I pray that moments will come when you just have to say, “It’s real! It is all real!”

That then  is what I want for you, that is what I pray for you. If you don’t want that, well I have prayed  it for you anyaway. I am remembering as I say that several Dutch pastors who seemed a bit upset when they were prayed for the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The setting was a conference which Ian Macdonald the Associate Minister at Holy Trinity and I helped to lead in the Netherlands at the invitation of Dick Westerkamp from Houten. God answered the prayers for several of these pastors by giving them a gift of tongues that they hadn’t wanted! Who said God is a gentleman or that He respects everything we believe or don’t believe, want or don’t want? So some of you may not want an “Oh, it’s real” moment or say you don’t need it. When it happens you will know what I mean by that phrase and that you did need it after all! However I know that by contrast some of you really do hunger for encounter with the Living God for an “Oh ,it’s real” encounter. If that describes you, don’t get discouraged if you have to wait.  I prayed for years before my first “Oh, it’s real, it is all real” encounter. Don’t give up asking, seeking and knocking. When such moments come you will be able to say, “This is our God. We have waited for Him.” It worries me a bit that there seems to be teaching going around that seems to say there is no place for waiting as we have it all: well, as Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones said, “Got it all? Got it all? Then in God’s name I ask you, where is it?”

Praying this for you as I hope from time to time  you will pray the same  for me. There is “more” for all of us. There is always “more.”

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 long ago I asked our son, David, if he wanted to go and see the house we will be moving to. He seemed interested, even thought it was getting dark. He did look confused though when I took him to two rows of bricks surrounded by earth and asked him, “What do you think then?” He smiled, half laughed and looked a bit caught between bemusement and embarrassment as to what on earth he was meant to say! Until that response I did not realise that was  a ridiculous question to ask him! There was almost nothing there to think anything about! However that did not stop me asking him a second question: “It’s nice isn’t it?” Well, now there was more than half laughter!

For me however, I have seen an example of the finished thing  in a Showhouse. It is easy for me to look at the plot and to imagine the finished house. Please don’t go all cynical and email me about snagging and builders  and delays and so on. Don’t be too quick to pour scorn on me and burst my bubble of joy and excitement! Actually I know all about such possibilities… but nothing you may say can take away from what I can see when I look at these two rows of bricks. Actually I confess that I go and just look at them reasonably regularly! Such are the things one finds time to do when one is retired on health grounds…

You might dismiss such visits as crazy, but actually they are motivated by a type of faith. After all according to Hebrews Chapter 11, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen.” I have no doubt what will appear in that plot, despite any setbacks, delays or whatever. I can see it with at least some degree of clarity.

I wonder if you have something in mind when you think of God’s purpose being increasingly completed in your life? I do. According to the bible it was  a purpose decided in Eternity which is the same for very believer. We are predestined to become like God’s Son. That is the main purpose of our being on earth and becoming followers of Jesus. Every other difference between each of us is incidental  or at least much less important compared with that. So, have you got in mind an image of Jesus? As I have asked before in a blog does it fit with Matthew Mark Luke and John, or does your image that you have picked up from someone,somewhere, somehow,  need questioned or even abandoned as non authentic? 

Biblical faith in God does not mean anything at all that I can imagine I can have. There was a teaching going around like that in Charismatic circles twenty years ago, but that is not faith in God. That is more like witchcraft, a seeking to manipulate spiritual power to my advantage. True faith according to the bible comes from hearing the Word of God. It is a response gifted by the Spirit of God to hearing the Word of the Lord, and the Word of the Lord on the eternal purpose for a believer’s existence is that here on earth we should become like God’s Son. One  day, when the process of transformation on earth has reached its limit then it will be time to go home through the valley of the shadow of death to become a completed work. Or it may be that The Hope of Christianity  will be fulfilled during your life time  and mine with Christ coming again. When that moment comes in the providence of Almighty God, the bible tells us something will happen:  believers alive on the earth will be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Despite all that we maybe do not know about heaven or eternity to come the bible says we know this, that when Jesus appears, we will be like Him.

It is good to believe for what God says He can and will do. He can and will  make us increasingly like Jesus. That is the goal to which we are to orientate our faith. I hold that vision for me. I have held that vision for the church for many years now. A vision for a church that looks like Jesus where the lost are saved, where people find  fullness of life, the sick are healed, the oppressed are set free and the Word of the Lord causes as much amazement to hearers as a miracle. At times I have seen that being within grasp. I have been in moments now and then when all I can say is that it seemed as though God stepped down from heaven to make his Name known on the earth. But usually at such moments people get in the way with another vision, or franchise and package something that God is doing as though it belonged to them. 

Is your vision for you and for the church simply “Jesus”?  No point to prove to anyone; no agenda to manipulate in the church; no other passion than that individually and together we would become like the Son of God?

“Oh God, have mercy on your church and on each one of us. Nothing else matters than the glory of your Son in our lives and in the Church. May the Lord Jesus become our only obsession. May Christians speak about  His excellencies when they gather together. May His name be upon our lips as we speak to a needy world. Jesus, all for Jesus, all I am and have and ever hope to be!”

Don’t fight the wrong battle for the wrong territory or life goal! There is nothing that has happened to you good or ill that God cannot take and work for this good purpose; to make you and I like His Son! Even those things that are hard to bear, that may have happened to you this very day, look on them in this way: “Even if the devil of hell meant to destroy me through this, I trust that my God and Father can use this to make me like His Son; that is my only battle I set myself in whatever may be happening in my life!”

“But you don’t know Kenny what happened to me today or recently, or way back in time!” You are right, I don’t:  I understand the resentment that might be bubbling up slowly as you read this blog today. But I am reminded of Richard Wurmband. Tortured for Christ, when released he used to quip that the Communists were very good to them in that they even gave them musical instruments to praise the Lord – the “clink clink “ of their chains, which Christian prisoners used to provide musical accompaniment as they sang together, “This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.” Perhaps when you hear that story, any rising anger against  the principle of this blog may sound more like an embarrassing whimper….

God bless you as He takes all things and works them together for His good purpose;  to make you like the Jesus we read of in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Do you actually know what He is really like or are you mesmerised by another Jesus? It may be time to start reading the book and by that  I mean in this instance the New Testament from the beginning again. May faith , true faith ,come to you by the Word of God…..

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.