“Mmm..The fish is not the most important thing…interesting…” That was a thought that came to mind earlier today. I was reading about a keen fisherman describing what he liked about fishing: he liked the countryside, the heathery smell of a fire, the preparing of his bag for setting out. In fact he liked the total experience so much that actually catching a fish was a bonus in the whole experience.

I feel the same about the coffees I drink in the places where I usually, but not today, write these blogs. I like the atmosphere in the places I write whichever cafe it happens to be. The quality of the coffee is not the prime thing. It is the whole ambience that I like. They tend to be relaxed places where people are getting on well with one another, happy to be with one another; the background music seems relaxing too. I like the fact that the vast majority of folk are younger than me usually, which fills the place with a buzz. I like people talking about things that matter to them at some tables which though publicly situated seem to be cocooned in empathy and compassionate looks and tones, while at other tables there is almost a sense of expansive fun that makes others at other tables smile. I like the different languages you hear in cafes in Edinburgh. I like the occasional very old person I see there feeling happy to be anywhere so long as it is with folk who love them but looking a bit bemused at all that is going on – so much fuss over a tea or a coffee? So for me the coffee is nice, but it is not all that I appreciate.

I was thinking today about what I miss about church when getting there is a step beyond what I can cope with quite often these days such as last week and today. It is more than the preaching of God’s Word, either in terms of me delivering a sermon which for so many years has been my calling, or listening to others exercising their calling to that task and joy. That of course is central along with worship, not a bonus like catching a fish while enjoying the experience of fishing as a whole, and I do miss hearing Ian and Ollie and others who have come to the fore due to my illness, preaching. But there are elements of the whole church experience beyond that which I miss too. I miss the reliable love of reliable church people who perhaps don’t always seem the most involved in every new venture, but they are faithful as they have been faithful over a lifetime often, and can be depended upon. I miss the mixture that should be part of a church gathering, young and old, families and single people. Such a mixture is a powerful witness to the fact that Christ and his cross draws people together . I have to say I dislike churches where there are too many splits and specific gatherings according to age or gender or a shared interest. To me that seems to deny the power of Christ and His cross to bring differing people together across the barriers there are in the world… but a blog about that can wait.. back to what I miss: I miss quiet smiles and nods in my direction into which so much love and kindness and genuine concern is woven. I miss the young folk, even the most mischievous whose antics will probably make at least some of the ministry team and others go grey haired sooner than otherwise would happen, but whose energy and humour and speed of talk and movement make me feel young again; and I miss the children whose insight into spiritual things occasionally astounds me and makes me laugh at the same time due to the words used to express that insight! I miss people being able to give thanks out loud for good things that have happened and the atmosphere of trust and faith in the face of life’s alarms. I miss the something extra of the presence of God that is promised when people gather together in the Name of Christ. I miss the very building. I know full well the church is not the building, but sometimes I think if people went silent and the stones of Holy Trinity Church could cry out like Jesus said the stones of Jerusalem would do… well, they could tell stories of salvation, healing, being set free, the recovery of equilibrium and steadiness, value being discovered and shadows lifting. The very stones of that place, or more accurately the poor quality bricks, are precious to me.

There is a lot more to church life than preaching of the Word, and I am saying that as a preacher and someone who values preaching and teaching immensely. Indeed I am remembering John Wimber speaking about a town he visited to do some church growth seminars. He asked the minister of a growing church why his church was growing: “Because I preach the Word!” was the convinced sounding answer. He asked the minister of a church that was declining why he thought it was declining: ”Because I preach the Word!” was the reply said with equal conviction. I suspect that one church was growing and the other declining because of what was offered in terms of totality of experience of what constitutes “church” beyond the preaching, important though that may be.

My Blog at the start of this Sunday was facing up honestly to the fact that there are many people suffering from sheep bite throughout the church world. But, as this Sunday draws near its end why not pause and give thanks for something good about what “church” means to you, even if like myself you didn’t make it there today.

God Bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

One of the truest remarks I have ever heard in the course of a sermon was at CLAN Gathering. I do wish what I heard  was not true, but unfortunately it is. Dr.Jack Deere was preaching and he said that all over the world he discovered people in churches who were suffering from sheep bite! He said this is one of the first revelations to come to pastors;  sheep do bite! Sheep can bite sheep; sheep can bite the Shepherd; Shepherds can bite the sheep! Bites hurt….

If you go to a church this Sunday, whether you are a sheep or a Shepherd, I really do hope that no one bites you. Unfortunately that cannot be guaranteed as it is not guaranteed in Scripture and experience tells me there are quite a few horrible Christians around!  However by God’s grace and the asked for help of the Holy Spirit you can be  in control of you. If you are a sheep I pray that you will realise it is in your control not to bite and not to bite back. If you are a Shepherd, don’t bite the sheep in your sermon especially if you are carrying a lot of sheep bites at the moment. Pastors, as one who understands your calling, I know how  easy it is to be misled by a counterfeit anointing of cleverness which can lead us to try to cut the legs away from any who may be opposing us under the guise of preaching the gospel, and to forsake the anointing of true  wisdom from above that pastors especially need and which has good fruit if we are patient. Resist the deliciously clever remark that comes to mind to slip into the sermon because you have just seen so and so is there in the congregation. It is unlikely to be of the Holy Spirit but is more likely to be your flesh bursting through. They will either miss what you say, or misuse it. Cleverness usually makes matters worse.

As far as it depends on you, shepherds and sheep, may God help you to have a bite free Sunday. May the Chief Shepherd who was brought alive again from the dead be  with His appointed shepherds and with the flock. When He was reviled He opened not His mouth: this the Lamb of God and this is the Shepherd we follow.

May the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be with 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.

For me “The Sound of Music” and “Mary Poppins” are reminders of a very happy childhood. Hearing a couple of decades ago that Julie Andrews can swear like a trooper in real life tarnished the memory slightly for a year or two, but it recovered! Even now in my late 50’s I watch them every time they come up in the T.V Schedule. For some reason I don’t like to watch them on DVD at my leisure any time I want: one of my many quirks that I don’t quite understand!  Actually when I think of it I don’t need to understand that oddity. I like my oddities and eccentricities that are a mystery to me and often to others. In fact I love them! Although it was not a particularly catchy tune, and perhaps not even the type of song a child was meant to like, I found myself in awe of the song, “Climb Every Mountain,”  the first time I heard it in a cinema in Sauchiehall Street in  Glasgow which is no more. I think it was called “The Gaumont”  but I might be wrong about that. Whatever,  I was inspired by the thought of that song as well as by the incredible voice of the person who sang that song whoever she was. However unguarded truths or truths that are revered beyond their proper reach can be destructive. The thought of climbing every mountain sounds very noble and appeals to those who like to think of the indomitable human spirit. However Jesus showed that there were limits to such a noble truth. He said that there are mountains we were not to climb but to simply command to be removed from our path.

I wonder if some of us have the mentality of being spiritual Munro baggers? There is something about a mountain, that makes us feel we have to climb it and notch up another victory over another challenge. Well, I am asking you today to consider if there is something you are trying to climb that the Lord has never asked you to climb? Perhaps it is the demands of your church. Church and indeed church leaders can become mountain makers for people, asking us to climb the mountain of the leader’s dreams or aspirations, or the pressures of a congregation without being allowed to question. But perhaps the leadership has become like a Pharisee or a scribe or a teacher of the law in Jesus day who all effectively in one way or another loaded up on people’s backs burdens that were hard to bear that Jesus actually came to remove. There are times when church leadership oversteps its authority and starts telling their people in quite some detail what they are allowed to do and not to do. It reached a damaging height in the charismatic movement back in the seventies and eighties in what became known as Heavy Shepherding or The Shepherding movment – leaders effectively interfering and commanding in every aspect of a believer’s life. Is it time to say “no” to someone who is asking too much of you, who is wanting to make you a mirror image of themselves and their vision, instead of encouraging you to be who you are in God?  Is there a mountain in terms of “church” that God never asked you to climb but somehow you are wearying your truest you out trying to meekly comply?

Or perhaps the mountain that you are trying to conquer is a mountain of having to be a certain type of believer, with a certain type of personality etc. You aspire to be like someone you greatly admire and wish you were more like them. You are persuaded by the lure of a false “you” which somehow for some reason you feel you must aspire to. Why not tell that mountain to get out of the way? God made no mistake when he made you or made me. According to Ephesians every believer is God’s work of art! Not everyone appreciates every artist’s work of art, indeed sometimes we might wonder as we look if there is anything artistic going on at all! You might feel incredulity at the idea of you as you being a work of art, as much as the incredulity  I felt about a contestant’s work of art in the Turner Prize which I saw a photograph of in the papers yesterday – a man clutching his buttocks! But it was someones work of art, I guess. I am still left thinking  today though, “Who is kidding who here,” with regard to calling what I saw in that photograph “art.” But I know for sure you are a work of art without having to guess.  I have no doubts about that. The bible tells me it is so and I believe it. You as you are in God, to God are priceless. You may feel incredulous and want to say, “Who is kidding who?” It is, however true!

“Climb every mountain” now belongs in that quiver of spiritual arrows, waiting for the right times and seasons to draw it out, which is not in the face of every mountain. I have other arrows there as well. The prayer used in Remembrance Services about how as Christians we should fight and not heed  the wounds belongs there  in that quiver for arrows which should be used sparingly and at the right time, otherwise spiritual and indeed emotional and physical carnage can be the result.

“Stop climbing every mountain.” Could that be the Word of the Lord for some who read this? Do you need to face something today to tell it to get out of the way of the purposes of God for you?

My health makes climbing mountains unlikely unless I want to get to glory sooner rather than later! But my physical limitation health wise also means I need to take stock spiritually and ask which mountains My heavenly Father who loves me means me to climb and which have been put there by the expectations of others or by my being harsh toward myself. What I can manage spiritually and physically for that matter is a steady walk on level ground. Well, in Scripture we are commanded to make level ground for the Lord and for ourselves. Don’t put unnecessary mountains up against His approach. Don’t climb unnecessary mountains that are not His purpose.  May God give you strength when you are meant to climb and strength to walk on level ground when you are not being told to climb. Maybe this is a day to be bold and command mountains out of the way of you being you in 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.

Maybe it is just because I mentioned A.W. Tozer in a blog a few days ago that I have been thinking today of a recorded sermon of his in which he recounts the story of visiting a certain church one day who  had  invited him to their service to preach. This particular church was very strong on the fact that Christians should be crucified to the world and the world to them: in other words they put a lot of effort into being “holy” which actually just means being distinct or different or separate from the world. It is good that they were serious about that, as the bible tells us without holiness none of us will see the Lord. Salvation by grace is not a licence to be unholy! Cheap grace is not the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which saves us. However often in church communities that do set out to take holiness very seriously there can be a taking of a truth too far or perhaps more accurately the truth gets distorted somehow, which in the case of “holiness teaching,” can lead to legalism and judgmentalism in outlook towards those within that community of faith and indeed towards other Christian communities. For example in the community that Tozer speaks about in his sermon the men wore ties with square ends rather than pointed tip ties, because if they wore pointed tip ties they would be pointing down the way to hell. Well, some of the leadership were getting a bit concerned that they were maybe taking things too far and asked Tozer what they should change. He told them, “Change nothing. I am fed up meeting Christians who haven’t gone far enough!”

Well, I was surprised by what Tozer told them. I could see the point though as he talked about imagining we were building an underground shelter to escape the effects of a nuclear bomb. He said that he didn’t think he would ever meet anyone distraught because they discovered actually it only needed to be three stories down rather than the 4 that they had dug. They wouldn’t mind finding out they had gone too far.

I do worry that the modern approach to Christian life in many circles seems to be to try and present to the non believer that actually we are really just like them. We are as cool as the coolest, trending as well as anyone in how we dress, our socialising or entertainment habits,  the cars we drive and how we do up our houses and where we holiday, but we are just different round the edges really in that we like this Christian thing or church thing.

Another story from Hugh Black’s ministry: a titled lady was looking for a new coachman; the interview consisted of the applicants driving her in her coach around a marked out cliff top road. Applicant 1 kept a moderate distance from the edge of the cliff. Applicant 2 drove as far away from the edge as the course would permit and almost seemed to be over cautious. Applicant 3 showed tremendous skill by driving as near to the cliff edge as possible and as fast as possible. He thought, as indeed the other applicants thought he would be offered the job considering his obvious skill. However the job went to applicant 2. Why on earth would the lady have wanted someone who would think nothing of putting her safety at risk? The job went to applicant 2 because he had stayed as far away from the edge as possible.

Never be afraid of taking holiness too far. I don’t think that is today’s problem somehow. Of course being distinct can descend into petty legalism. I am not advocating that, however I am thinking of Tozer’s words: “I am fed up meeting Christians who have not gone far enough.”

I guess we will see God’s glory fall in our times in proportion to how seriously we take what Scripture says: “Be holy as I the l Lord am holy.”

As to what the essence of holiness is, well, I think I can make the case that it is ultimately about mercy and grace. However, how I got to believing that will need to await a blog on a future day, but don’t wait another day before putting the essence of holiness into action. If you love with mercy you will never be more like God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God bless

Kenny

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

http://www.opendoorsuk.org/scotland

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

Well, here is a wee extra blog going out very late UK time when few will read it.  In fact if you are reading this tonight (Thursday) and live in the UK, what on earth are you doing? For any favour, will you put off the light and go to sleep!!  For those of you who can’t sleep, well here is something to think about in the night hours  that might help to put you to sleep….

Just a night time observation: my blog two days ago entitled “Blasphemy” got twice as many hits twice as fast as today’s blog entitled “Be Happy in God.” (If you haven’t read them, it might help to do that before you read on.) Now what does that say about the outlook of Christian blog readers? Does it mean we are secret heresy hunters wanting to find fault with someone in the Christian world, especially if they seem to be successful, well liked and pastor a mega church? Does it mean we are suspicious of happiness as a Christian virtue? Or does it mean nothing at all? Just wondering out loud…

Here’s another thought: if I shared that I had a positive  word of commendation  from the Lord to share that was for some of you and I also had to bring a hard word from the Lord to some of you because all was not well with  you in the Lord’s sight, which would you believe must be for you? What does that tell you about you? You struggle to believe in grace? You secretly think, “It is only a matter of time before God tells everyone the ugly truth about me and exposes me publicly,” ? Or does it mean nothing at all? Just wondering out loud…

And one more thought… when I preach in a congregation or at a conference a word that is full of challenge and may be pulling people up in some way, I get more positive responses, more people saying “thank you” afterwards than when I speak in a more overt way about the Father’s love or tenderness? What does that tell you about Christian gatherings? Do we sit there thinking, “They needed to hear that!  I hope they were listening…?” Do we think God’s sternness more so than His kindness leads us to repentance…? Or does it mean nothing at all? Just wondering out loud….

Your friendly, wondering, not yet sleeping  blogger…

Kenny

Today I found myself wondering if some of us have a predisposition to think negatively, pessimistically or whatever the word may be that I am searching for. I am thinking for example of years ago when the church where I was pastor required £90,000 of restoration work. (Actually in the course of time the final bill rose to over £400,000!) At the meeting of the elders where we began to face up to the scale of the necessary work, one man spoke out a strongly negative word: “Oh we are never going to manage to raise that amount of money.” I suggested we pray and ask God for His enabling us to raise the money and also asked for an early sign that He was with us in the task. The very next Sunday, someone who had not been at the meeting came into the vestry to speak with me before the morning service. He just wanted me to know that he was intending to give us £50,000 and was sorry that was all he could give at that present moment. Being a typical Scot, before I had finished my lunch back home after the service I was convinced I had misheard and he maybe said he was going to give us £50. But no, it was indeed £50,000 that was bing offered. I decided to tell the elders the good news, that God had answered our prayers: that He had shown He was with us in the task, just as we had asked.  When I told them about the generous offer, the same man who had spoken so negatively, still spoke negatively!  He said, “We had better keep this quiet because if people hear that we have got so much money they are never going to give!” He somehow could not allow himself to rejoice and be happy. He is in glory now and will have learned the truth of what C.S.Lewis said: “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”

P.G. Wodehouse said that a Scotsman and a sunbeam would not be easily confused! Our natural tone seems to be a bit towards “lament” rather than rejoicing. However I am not so much talking about a national characteristic, but asking about personal characteristics. ARE YOU ALLOWING YOURSELF TO BE HAPPY? ARE YOU ALLOWING YOURSELF TO REJOICE? Do you tend to dwell on what is wrong about your situation, your circumstances, people? Does everything look like a potential problem? Did God bless you today and do something good for you, but all you saw was what has not yet come right for you?

Someone asked me after reading a past blog if I believe that there are apostles today. Well, I certainly believe every one of us is Apostolic in this sense: according to the letter to the Ephesians  believers in the church today are built upon the historic foundation of the first Apostles such as Paul. I will leave you guessing whether I believe there is such a ministry as “An Apostle” in the church of today!! Wherever we stand on that issue, perhaps  some of us reading this blog, or perhaps a great many of us,  need to be true to the foundation of the Church and hear a very basic, twice repeated Apostolic command given by Paul; “Rejoice in the Lord always!” We can take things too seriously in a not good way. Even our devotional life can become a bit staid and lifeless. I remember when someone who was a great influence on my life, the Pentecostal pastor Hugh Black, gave a rare insight into his own devotional practices at a time when I was hungrily seeking a life of a fuller experience of the Holy Spirit than I was living.  He simply shared in one meeting that when he woke up each  morning he spent the first ten minutes “being happy in God.” I think God was reminding me of that today because although not  a negative person I can let the negative side of circumstances run a-mock in my thinking sometimes. I am simply passing  on what I was reminded of as something that may be of benefit to you as well.

Being happy in God sounds like good bread to start the day with. I saw the results of that in Hugh Black’s life and ministry and fruitfulness. It is good to learn from God’s people when they share the secrets of the Kingdom victory hat they have discovered. Why not give it a go? Take 10 minutes tomorrow morning just to be happy in God. I am going to try and remember to do that myself.

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.

A couple of days ago, Morag and I were invited out to lunch in the home of two of our friends. The food was wonderful and so was the company, not just the adult company, but the presence of their youngest child, Harris. As babies and toddlers have a way of doing without trying, he became the object of most of our attention and fascination after lunch was over. I couldn’t help but notice something that reminded me of something I read not long ago. This young child’s words, or more accurately his noises, inarticulate to Morag and I, seemed to have a magical effect! His mother and father knew what these noises meant and duly complied with what was being “requested” or perhaps more accurately “demanded!” That is what reminded me of the book I had read about the development of language. There is a stage at which a very young child thinks his or her words have almost magical power. When they make a noise, any noise, and even more so when these nosies become more specific words, they notice how powerful an effect they seem to have. The thing they need, or want or whatever seems to happen in response to these sounds and words they form.  Now of course it is not that the words have magical powers. If anything what has the power is the relationship between the parents and the child, particularly  the insightfulness of  parental love, care and compassion. That love can interpret what seems like indistinct sounds to onlookers  and is moved to  very specific and appropriate action.

It disturbs me that over the years I have heard some teaching and preaching especially in the fold of the church which has been my main spiritual home, namely the evangelical/charismatic wing, that almost sounds as though many grown up believers have not moved much beyond “word magic” in their thinking about God. Getting God to do something is often made to sound as though it depends on getting the right words, praying or saying the right formula. If something doesn’t happen, then it is because we are using the wrong approach in the words that we are using in our praying or whatever. How small a god is that – that he apparently needs to hear his worshippers using  the right words before he acts or conversely that he can be made to act like an automaton, if the  right words are uttered? “Word magic” is not unknown in the Bible. Jacob wanted to know the name of the one he wrestled with one night at the Jabbok river – it turns out of course he had been wrestling with God. Jacob was into magic, into the occult, as stories in Genesis make clear. He felt that if he could know the name of the one he wrestled with then he could use that name magically to control him. Such belief was common at the time. Get hold of the secret name of a person or a god or the city of your enemy and you could control them. But Jacob didn’t need to do that. The only God there is, with whom he wrestled, had already renamed Jacob to call him “Israel.” The reason God gives for the name change is that Jacob  had fought with God and man and had prevailed. I can see that Jacob’s cunning and cheating helped him prevail over men, but for a long time I could not see how he had prevailed over God… until it came to me. It was Jacob’s sheer weakness and fallibility, his inability to be anything other than Jacob the cheat, that had prevailed. Our weakness is noticed by the compassion of God. The power in our relationship with God is weighted towards Him always. The power in the relationship is in His compassionate understanding love for His children.

Do you need to get rid of “word magic” ideas of God? A good proportion of you who read this blog will be charismatics, so I know you probably do need to get rid of some wrong teaching popular around that scene past and present: teaching that makes God too small, us too big and ultimately causes more disappointment and loss of faith than any blessing and help it brings. Do you need to get rid of the tormenting notion that someone you loved might not have died if only you had prayed in the way you have just heard at a Christian conference on healing you should have prayed? What nonsense! In fact what blasphemy against the Living God and the love of our Heavenly Father! Friend, child of God, you don’t need to do anything to move God. Our weakness and need of Him, our inability to do life already moves Him. “As a Father pities his children so the Lord pities those who fear him. He remembers we are dust.”

Don’t get over tied up in the right words or the right formulas. Sometimes we are praying most deeply and truly when we are praying in inarticulate sounds and groans. Our Father understands them.

Oh God have mercy on the church when we think we have any other power over God than our weakness!  Away with small minded teachings of a tiny God! “Our God is in the heavens, and He does whatsoever He pleases,”  says the Psalmist. Fortunately for us, it pleases Him to respond to even our most inarticulate sounds and weakest cries. He understands weakness from the inside, all the away from the weakness of babyhood to heaving out a last breath. So just speak to Him… half sentences are fine; incoherence is ok; no sound at all is just splendid! He just loves His children! He can work out what we really mean, better even than we can work out ourselves what on earth we really mean! In fact with that last sentence I too join the rank of blasphemous charismatic teachers, God forgive me. He doesn’t need to think and “work out” what we mean…He already knows… “Your Father knows…” It is good for that thought to be our spiritual breakfast and our evening supper and our bread through the day.

May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 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 really want to learn to be “fully present to the present.” I think the first time I heard that phrase was from the lips of someone who has suffered more than most. I had often noticed a far away look in their eyes almost as though they were focussing on something other than the moment, and when I remarked on what I noticed they said, “Yes, I find it hard to be present to the present.” The events of the past drew their attention and their energies almost with magnetic power. Sometimes it is not the past but the future that can draw us away from the present, either future dreams, hopes or fears about what may or may not happen. I have often mentioned Henri Nouwen in these blogs. He makes the observation that whenever we lose our way in a time of prayer it is usually because our minds have gone on to something in the past or something in the future and away from God in the present moment.

I simply want to ask you, “Is God with you right now?” Well, of course He is. Through Christ He has made a promise of His presence being with us always even to the end of the age. If we really believe that however, we would be more present to God in the present and probably think a lot less than we do about the past or the future. Henri Nouwen puts it like this in his small book, “ A Spirituality of Homecoming: “The  art of spiritual living is to pay attention to the breathing of the Spirit right where we are and to trust the Spirit is breathing new life in us now.The beauty of the spiritual life is that we can be where we are. We don’t need to be anywhere else. We are already home. So let’s be there…. Prayer is being with God in the present.” (pages 54 and 55.)

I realised not long ago that I had lost something of the felt peace and presence of God. I saw clearly one day that  had come about because perhaps understandably my mind was living a lot in the future in anticipation  of changes and uncertainties that stepping back from parish ministry will bring about. When I refocused on God in the present moment, felt peace and presence were restored almost instantaneously.

I fully understand why the past and the future can have amazing mesmeric hold over us. I pray that God may break that power if that is what you are experiencing and that you may be fully present to God in the present moment.

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.

There are some words I come back to every so often because they bring life to me. Brennan Manning’s preaching clips on Youtube would be an example of what brings life to me  every time I listen. Take a listen yourself. Sometimes though there is a different tone I need to hear.  Today I thought with sadness and yet with hope of the words quoted below written by A W Tozer. The times are not favourable for such words to get a hearing in much of today’s church, even in those parts which have a reputation of life. My prayer is seasons will change in the church and the day may come when we embrace such words with godly regret, repentance and sorrow. When that day comes the Day of God’ s power for which many faithful souls have prayed over the decades will surely quickly follow.

THE OLD CROSS AND THE NEW

“Unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental. 

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique — a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.

The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam’s proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure.…

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist… preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level…  

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect…. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross. 

The old cross is a symbol of death…. The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life. 

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death…. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God’s stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.  …the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.“

Longer version here: The Old Cross and The New

I don’t mean to be pedantic, but today I was thinking that the phrase “my spiritual life” is not the best one to describe what is meant by it. I have been very aware  lately in this present phase of life as it is for me, that by spiritual life I really don’t mean something that I possess as though it was my own and deserves credit. Rather by spiritual life I think I mean the life of the Spirit of God within me. I found myself thinking today of a verse which Paul addressed to the Corinthians. In the opening chapters of 1st. Corinthians Paul acknowledges how blessed a church they were. They had been gifted with the visiting ministries of significant Christian leaders such as Paul and Apollos; they had been gifted too with many spiritual gifts. Unfortunately all of that had produced to a  significant degree a sort of arrogance or pride that in turn had produced the bad fruit of division. Paul has to say to them, “What have you that you did not receive? Why then do you boast as though it were your own.”

What do I have that I have not received as a gift from God? That may sound gloomy, pessimistic and Calvinistic in the extreme. Actually if you receive that truth the way I did today it gives tremendous hope. What do I mean? Well, of course I have responsibility to nurture and take care of what God gives by His Spirit, but ultimately I can only do so much. I don’t mean to make it sound as though I am passing the buck on to God, but ultimately if spiritual life is the result of the gift of His Spirit, then there is always hope. If spiritual life depended on me that would be worrying. But if it is a gift from God then when I am aware for whatever reason of things not being as they should be there is always hope, for Jesus has told me and told us all that our Father loves to give good things, loves to give His Holy Spirit to His children. At times when I have felt no great energy, indeed have felt blankness in my walk with the Lord, times where good things do not cause me to rejoice and sin does not really bother me, I have relied on the thought of Paul in 2nd, Corinthians Chapter 1, namely that we can set our hope on God, that having delivered us once He can do so again. God can do what I can’t. It is a slap in the face to our pride that actually all spiritual life is a gift from God, but it is our hope and a great relief as well.

I wonder if you are trying too hard to be spiritual, as though it is something that lies completely within your domain. Ultimately spiritual life is the life of the Spirit within us. It is all gift. If you are reading this and you are going though a blank time spiritually, I assure you on the basis of the Word of God and of my own personal experience, that God can turn that around. He can cause deep to call unto deep when all seems pretty dead and lifeless within. He can help us desire Him when we have no such desire in ourselves. There is one prayer I have never found God say a “No” to, and that is when I am genuinely unable to make any progress myself, and when that has ceased to bother me, I have called on him to deliver me from my own spiritual deadness yet again. Sooner or later, He always has. When he does deliver me from that deadness, I have cried over what I could not cry over before, rejoiced over what previously I felt blank towards. When I ask for help sooner or later something begins to stir with longing for God that seemed to have gone out. FROM CHRIST AND FOR CHRIST AND TO CHRIST ARE ALL THINGS. Ask Him to assert the power of His life within you.There is nothing to boast about save Him. Call out to the God who can bring life where there is deadness. Something will begin to stir within you.

I read a beautiful line in a poem today about “Restless Africa” stirring in the hearts of swallows just before they migrate. May the Spirit of the God who yearns jealousy for you make a restlessness felt within you, until wild horses could not drag you back from seeking the One you may currently be cold shouldering. If it does not sound too irreverent to mention this, sometimes the medication I am on makes me uncontrollably ravenously hungry. The cause of that hunger does not originate in me. I think I just want to say to you today, especially to those who have lost a desire for God,  that Christ is the hunger as well as the bread. Set your hope on Him.

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 made a semi promise to someone and to myself that this would be a blog free Sunday. I have not been sleeping at all well and am suffering a bit from that lack of sleep, hence the promise. It is not a good thing to break a promise, even a semi-promise. Our “yes” is to be “yes” and our “no” is to be “no.” Keeping promises is a sign of God in us as He himself is a promise maker and a promise keeper. He has made many promises to us in Christ and always says ”yes” to them, always keeps them.

However because of a dream early this morningI have to break that semi-promise.  This can’t wait until tomorrow. I just hope it is not to late to reach who I think it is meant to reach, namely preachers of the gospel preaching this very day. The dream was so clear: a minister was preparing to preach, preparing to lead a Sunday Service. In the dream they were combing their hair one last time, looking at themselves in the mirror and smiling because everything was looking good. However in the dream I found myself speaking out a plea; “But have you ever told people ‘You are lost, you are lost, you are facing a lost eternity, turn to Christ!’ ?” Preacher… have you?

The last time I preached in Holy Trinity before having to stop, my morning and evening services in a series on The Apostles Creed were based around the line in which we confess about Jesus, “He descended into hell.” I found myself sharing a secret fear with the congregation, namely that I had never made it clear enough that without Christ we face a lost eternity. I made it clear that day…

I know I have some friends who are preachers and who read this blog who do not share my theology and will find what I am saying today distasteful in the extreme. The worst consequence of this blog today is that you simply stop reading this blog. This blog may be the last blog from me that you read. But just as in my last sermon I want to ask you in case this is for you my last blog: “Have you made it clear enough that without Christ we are lost?”

For those who do share my theology, remember that Paul in 2nd. Corinthians places before every ambassador of Christ an amazing picture of what we are meant to look like. He places before us a begging Christ, a Christ on His knees pleading through His messengers, “Be reconciled to God.” Maybe we need to pray the line of the popular song and really mean it: “Break my heart for what breaks yours….”

Lost is a beautiful word. It implies someone belongs somewhere. There is a home to return to. If it is the final word over a life it is a horrific word.

“Have I made it clear enough…” was the phrase I used in my last sermons here in Holy Trinity. I did not know they would be my last semons. If today was your last sermon preacher, “Have you made it clear enough?”

So today, comb your hair, take that final look in the mirror to see you  are at least semi presentable enough not to be a stumbling block… but remember there are more important things than looking ok enough for folk to think well of you…a begging and entreating Christ on His knees is looking for begging and entreating preachers who say on His behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”

This is too urgent to check for any spelling mistakes etc.  I am putting out this draft as it is. If there are any I will correct them in future updates. I hope they do not irritate you to the point you angrily dismiss what I am trying to say.

Your brother in the Lord

Kenny

I feel this weekend I want to remind myself and all of you blog readers of something: Christians believe in the Church. In the Apostles Creed, a short summation of the essentials of the Christian Faith, after we have confessed together, “We believe in God the Father Almighty….In Jesus Christ… in the Holy Spirit…” one of the other tenets of Apostolic faith we confess is , “We believe in the Holy Catholic (Universal) Church.”

In these days when  even among Christians I often pick up a tone of cynicism about “church” I guess I just want each one of us to ask if we  personally can say, “I believe in the Church,” or have you or I  become the Church’s mocking  and frustrated critic rather than her defender?

I think it was Henri Nouwen who imagined someone responding to the idea of believing in the church with a thought or a question like “How can I believe in something so  obviously flawed?” It is a fair enough question. I would simply say the Church reminds me of two things:

Firstly, you meet some pretty awful behaviour in church and that reminds me that all of us are sinners and need to be saved – and I mean that in a non cynical way.  I remember hearing Dr. Jack Deere say that church can be a mean place. That is so true. We sometimes have a very rosy picture of the early church. Actually Paul had to write some pretty amazing things to some churches. He had to tell believers to stop brawling and fighting, to stop lying to stop backstabbing, to stop using bad language and being dishonest, and to stop behaving immorally!  I personally know a minister whose truthfulness I have no reason to doubt, who claimed another minister actually punched him after a Presbytery Meeting!! The Christian church and  sadly often the leadership of the Christian church, has demonstrated all through history the sinfulness of human beings and how terribly evil and distorted and ugly religion can become.

Secondly, I have discovered the forgiving and encouraging love of the God who saves in the Church as well. I have been convinced of that love though the preaching of the Word I have heard in church through faithful ministers; through formal and informal celebration of the sacraments;  through the psalms hymns and spiritual songs I have sung as part of a worshipping congregation. Alongside all of that I  can genuinely say that through the ministry of the people of God ,who are the Church, I have caught glimpses and much more than  glimpses of the merciful  love of God in word, deed, forbearance, understanding and encouragement.

So amid a myriad of other things I could say, the church at its worst convinces me  that men and women including myself need saved from ourselves and our sin,  and at its best helps me to believe the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end. “It” or perhaps more lovingly and personally I should say, “She” helps me believe in the good news of One  called Jesus.

Perhaps the prayer some of us need to bring as  ministers, pastors, elders, leaders and people, is “Lord, help me to keep believing in the Church.” As some preacher somewhere quipped, “My mother has wrinkles but I still love her!” Remember any clever cynicism you direct towards church lands on Jesus, for the Church is His body. Mock His body, you hurt Him. Bless His body today or any day and you will bless Him.

So, just a thought for you to mull over as Sunday rolls around once more… “We believe in the Holy Catholic Church…”

Kenny

P.S. – Remember there is only one Church. If you are tempted to look down on another denomination or congregation  thinking their obvious sins and failings are not the sins and failings of your church or denomination or your non-denomination, remember we are part of the one holy catholic church.  Jesus taught us to pray  as his disciples,”Forgive us our sins.” Remember too that our persecuted brothers and sisters are part of that one church too…so…

P.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 made the decision yesterday to live by the UK tax year spiritually. I mean I made the choice to begin my year in April, in the spring, in the season of  new life and of Easter and to end it as new life and Easter are  breaking forth again. I have decided that I won’t live from January to December, from the darkness of winter to the darkness being around once more, though being a Scot I will still say, “Happy New Year,” on January the 1st and celebrate!

What drove me to that decision was feeling a quite unexpected and unsought deep sorrow for those who have no faith in God. When I was younger in spiritual terms I remember Psalm 14 verse 1 being referred to quite a lot: “The fool says in his heart there is no God.” The word fool, it was explained, was someone in whom something was lacking morally not intellectually. In other words atheism was a moral not an intellectual choice and therefore liable to justifiable judgement. No genuineness was ever conceded to those who claimed they were agnostic or atheist on other grounds.

I still believe what the psalm says, that there are those who know God is real but who are fools, speaking against what they know for moral/immoral reasons rather than intellectual or any other type of reason. Indeed I believe that the world is full of those who  want to shut God out and will continue to do so no matter how loving and compassionate the witness of Christians or the church to them may be. But today I am asking that you pray for those who may want to believe, who are not angrily fighting against faith but find they do have more honest barriers to believing.

I am thinking for example of the many people I have met over the course of my ministry for whom believing in a good and caring God is not easy because their experience of  life at very best has been chaotic and at worst completely destructive of their well being or their happiness through no fault  of their own other than being born  into a certain place and time and into a certain family or indeed into either a non-family or into no family.  I am thinking too of sensitive and caring people open to reality, who may have a real love for people and for living things who look out on a world of suffering and though they may see what is good and beautiful and may indeed feel awe and wonder, they cannot get the sum to  add up that at the centre of everything is a God who cares.

What prompted this blog was a memory of being in a certain city a while back and seeing a world famous apologist for the Christian Faith walking in the city centre. I recently watched two clips of this person in action. It seemed to me that there was a certain ridicule being poured on unbelief, as though all unbelief came about for reasons that could and should be judged as nonsense. It seemed to me as well, that the apologetics being presented would only sound convincing  to those already in the camp of belief , and probably would not convince many non believers if any.

But it was the tone of ridicule and lack of respect and compassion that bothered me most. How different from what I was reading yesterday in poetry  by Kenneth Steven. I am putting a couple of his poems together in my mind as I write. He talks about the results of a society growing more and more away from a belief in God to not believing in God. He says this: there is no one to say a final prayer to at night before turning off the light.  There is such pathos in that thought and sentence. It causes to rise within me  the same sadness that I feel when someone has lost their spouse of decades, or their very best friend when they tell me that  the hardest thing is having no one to share things with at night any more. Furthermore I realised through reading these poems that the atheist or agnostic may be able to admire beauty in the world, but ultimately has the feeling it has no eternal meaning. He or she can look at the universe and think that its beauty is like the beauty of a soapy bubble. It is indeed beautiful, full of colour, but it ultimately bursts. Its beauty does not last , nor could it, nor was it ever meant to. It has no ultimate meaning nor is it meant to have. It is as though everything leads to December and to extinction rather than everything leading to spring and  to life. This strikes me as being something other than that which is morally culpable. It strikes me as sad that someone should carry this belief, that ultimately  winter is the verdict over all things rather than spring or summer.

Not everyone who says there is no god falls into the category of the fool in Psalm 14. If you think that psalm  does cover all unbelief then come with me round Wester Hailes for  a while and hear some life stories such as I have heard. Is there any compassion in the heart of the church, in your heart and mine for those who find faith difficult? Perhaps I am just asking us as believers, do we love non believers the way that the God who sent forth His only Son did when he did precisely that?

Kenny

I said in yesterday’s blog that one of the easy things about blogging is that you can begin a new topic each day. You do not have to follow on from the last one the way you might have to if you were preaching a series of sermons. However today I felt I was to continue on from yesterday.

Basically, if you don’t want to read yesterday’s blog, I  was talking about not ignoring warning dreams from God. I would hate you to think that I never fall into that mistake. I don’t want to do anything in this blog other than to  exalt the mercy of God to us all. I realised that the blog yesterday might sound as though I never makes mistakes in terms of listening to God. I make plenty…

So let me tell you about a time I did ignore a warning from God. It came not so much as a dream but as a thought when I was praying. The setting is Stronsay, the  7 miles by 5 miles island that was part of my first charge. A man had gone  missing . That actually was quite worrying as suicide was not unknown.  Perhaps it was the negative side of the draw of the sea. People were searching. I prayed as I was driving around and felt the Lord put this thought in my mind; “He is in his house.” I decided to go to the man’s house to investigate. As I approached the door, a picture flashed into my mind. It was a picture of a farm gate with a warning sign, “Beware of the bull.” So what did I do? I ignored the warning from God and opened the door and walked in. The missing man was nowhere to be seen. It was only later that night that he was indeed found in his  own house. He had crawled between the plasterboard and the outer wall and was hiding there… with a loaded shotgun in his hands. I hope you can see why I want to stress that anything that appears to be positive from these blogs arises from God’s mercy, not from my spiritual strength or obedience. I find it as difficult to do the right thing as anyone else. I often get it wrong.

However, let me tell you what I really pushed against  as I pushed open that man’s door. I pushed against an agitation I felt within. I pushed against a lack of peace. For me, I learned then and many times thereafter had to relearn that one of the best ways to know what God is wanting us to do is to look for the sense of His peace resting on an intended course of action. If that peace is not resting upon me personally, then it is a good sign I am about to step out of the will of God. That day on Stronsay ,I pushed against a lack of peace and stepped out of the will of God quite  deliberately and intentionally. The consequences could have been dire. I am indebted to the mercy of God. Mercy is what you need when you have not got a leg to stand on, when you have no excuses for deliberate sin and disobedience.

I think I want to encourage you to learn to read the peace of God or the lack of it in your deepest heart, in your spirit. After all, according to Colossians 3 verse 15 the peace of God is like an umpire helping us to know when something is out of or inside the court of God’s will. I know that verse is perhaps more talking about collective church decisions but I think it has a valid individual application as well.

So may the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be upon you. May you learn to discern that peace, both its presence its absence.

God Bless

Kenny

PS – 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 almost daily blogging business is so much easier than preaching once or twice a week, that’s for sure. As I have said before, I just ask God to bring something from my spirit to the surface of my attention  and then share it with you. It doesn’t need to follow on from the blog before ,such as in a series of sermons.

Well, today the verse that came to mind occurs in the story of the Kings or the Wise men, the Magi, or whatever you prefer to call them. After worshipping Jesus and presenting gifts to Him, they left again for their own country but as we know they did not go back to Herod, because  of what is recorded in this phrase: “And being warned by God in a dream…”

For some reason, I think God wants to say to some today not to ignore warnings He gives you in your dreams. I know that some of you fine Reformed fellows out there might have difficulty with this notion, but I do believe God speaks to us through dreams. I am not the world’s best at interpreting dreams. There are courses and books available to help with that. I will try and find some links and put them at the end of this blog…if, that is,  I can work out the technicalities of how to do that! However, I have found that warning dreams can be understood even by a novice like me. Warnings need to be stark and clear and obvious. Let me share a couple of that type of dream with you.

A good few yeas ago, I dreamed one night when I was a minister in Thurso, that a man I greatly respected in the Lord, who I had always wanted to meet, met me in my Church Hall. I had never seen this man, only heard of him, so I had no idea what he looked like. I just knew it was him. He was standing on one side of the church hall and I was on the other. There was an invitation to join him on his side, in what he was doing, and something in me longed to do that, but I felt in the dream that despite the attractiveness of that offer to me, I was not to accept it. The next day I opened the door of the manse, and there was the man I had seen in my dream standing there in the flesh! I must have looked like I had seen a ghost for such a thing had never happened to me before! It was so tempting to want to throw in my hat and join him in the work he was doing, but I remembered the warning of the dream.

The only other time I experienced something similar was a dream about someone who has a ministry in counselling. Counselling is a wonderful ministry, but I felt that there was clear warning that this particular person’s approach to counselling and  what they were trying to bring people into was not right, in fact could perpetuate habits outlook and behaviour that would not produce freedom and wholeness. Now again, I had not seen this person, nor had I ever met them in my life, but I knew this person in the dream was them and there was some sort of warning about the influence they were having. A few days later I met them in a church meeting, and picked up from that meeting something of the unease I had felt about them in the dream.  As I said already I had never met them before nor have I ever met them since. I guess the purpose of the dream was to be alert to their influence upon people and to pray God would help this person to come more on the right track. I am not sure I have prayed for them as I should since that experience, in fact God forgive me I know I have not.

I think that for me God speaking in dreams is not something that is my main things as it were, although He has been doing that now and then since my childhood up until the present.  Nor do I find that for me it is “on tap.” I have found though that a dream from God is more likely to come when I ask him to speak to me in my dreams and then expect Him to.

There are all sort of dreams, but I guess I am wondering if God put this on my heart today because there are maybe some of you who have been warned by God in a dream not to go down a certain path, or in a certain direction, or be involved with some person or other. If this seems at all that it could be you, then please don’t ignore the possibility that God may be speaking to you trough this blog. Not every blog every day will be equally relevant to every person. If this is not for you then just say a prayer for those for whom this might be the Word of the Lord as they read it. Perhpas with simple faith you could also ask God to speak to you through dreams.

Your brother in Christ

Kenny

I  think this link will work. This is a good place to begin if you want to find out about God speaking in dreams…

http://www.thedreamhouse.co/about

You could also click the following for me excellent help and information:

http://northatlanticdreams.net

Both the above Ministries would not exist without the excellent ministry of John Paul Jackson the founder of streams International. Here is another link:

http://www.streamsministries.com

PS – 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 put some of you off reading my blog ever again. I want to share something that happened today…

Due to tiredness, medication and not sleeping last night,  I got on the wrong bus. That meant ending up somewhere I was not meaning to go. However there was blessing in it. I met two folk from my congregation, Holy Trinity, Wester Hailes. On more than one occasion over the course of my illness, at unexpected moments  I have bumped into  people from my congregation who I know pray for me. I usually meet them when I am feeling vulnerable. For example once I met two prayer warriors when I was about to go in for the results of a biopsy. I was feeling shaky  in every way; physically,  emotionally etc. The biopsy was supposed to confirm bad news, but the news turned out to be much more hopeful than was expected.  Somehow it felt the two people I met on that occasion, Ann and Mary, were a sign that God was with me, that all would be well. They felt like guardian angels, sent by God just when they were needed.  Today, ending up where I did not mean to go, I  felt foolish. It may seem a  small mistake to you, but for whatever reason it upset me and even concerned me and worried me slightly. I was passing condemnation upon myself, judging myself harshly. “How could you do that? Stupid!” Meeting Ian and Eileen from my congregation, people who I know pray for me and who have consistently over 11 years and more shown they care  for my family and I, somehow ministered to me an assurance of the goodness and the compassion  and the presence of My Heavenly Father. I was blessed too as they shared a story about how they had experienced the goodness of God just a few moments before we met.

Well, nothing  to stretch you so far in the blog, nothing offensive to the mind so far… but give me time, I am not finished yet! Being in the wrong place, I needed to take two bus journeys now instead of one to get back home. I was five pence short. I knew that before meeting the couple from my congregation. Anxiety  came back again. How would I get home? The very next second there was a clink and there at my feet was a 5 pence piece. There was no one around…

The religious will say I should have handed it in or given it to charity… But those who know the God I have come to know  by expeience will know what I did. I took my bus journeys, well actually a tram journey and a bus journey, with an extra helping of gratefulness, laughter and wonder. I felt cosseted in the care of God.

How did that 5p get there? Well, I know what I think but that would be another level of stretching for many… I may come back to it another day and tell you. Make of this what you will. I am still thanking my heavenly Father and smiling about it all!

I am also praying that you will remember that your Heavenly Father knows your needs down to the last 5p… In fact, He knows your needs even beyond that point. He has infinite resources and an infinite variety of means of getting the help you need to you.

I am not into the so called “Prosperity Gospel.” That may be the most understated sentence I have ever written in any of my blogs! I think Prosperity Gospel preaching  is a twisting of the truth of God – that statement has just  broken the previous record for understatement achieved in the last sentence!! I do believe, however, that our Heavenly Father  knows His children’s needs and can supply them. May the joy and laughter of discovering the truth of that come your way today or soon!

God Bless

Kenny

PS – 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.

Just an observation: I think most of my Christian Life I have lived mainly in my thoughts. By that I mean, I have ignored my body. There is a tendency I think for Christians to think of our bodies as unimportant, as though they are not spiritual compared with  our thoughts. Usually we are a bit ambivalent about emotions as well and tend to get mixed up as to their place or importance in our spiritual walk. However, one of the most wonderful discoveries of being not well has been the discovery of the presence of God in the weakness of my body.

What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh which the Lord did not take away despite Paul asking him three times? Well, I don’t know any more than anyone else. You pay your money and take your choice as to what he was talking about. He could have been using the phrase in the metaphorical sense of people being thorns in his side. This has biblical backing.  Certainly he had more than his fair share of detractors and of those who followed him around distorting his message or offering something they claimed was a superior gospel than Paul’s. I guess if you are committed to the idea that God always heals, by necessity you have to  say that is what the passage means otherwise your doctrine is in difficulty. I don’t want to get into the “does everyone get healed” debate. However for me, I have to be honest and say I have never found that line of thought remotely convincing. I believe Paul was not speaking metaphorically. I believe his thorn in the flesh to be a physical suffering or bodily ailment beyond normal levels. I believe that too has biblical backing. Personally I think the language shows that is what he was meaning. He was talking about something that felt like a stake being driven into his body. Yet in that experience, He became aware of the grace and strength of God.

I am fortunate in that my illness does not cause pain of the type I believe Paul carried. I don’t want to minimise the struggle some of you may be having with bodily pain. This blog is looked at in many countries in the world to my amazement. Sometimes I get private email responses that speak of struggles with pain. I can’t imagine what that is like. However I want to be honest to my experience. I have observed this: that some of my most memorable experiences of the presence of God drawing near have been precisely at those moments when I have been aware of a bodily weakness and illness that as yet has not been healed. It does not feel good to feel weak, but it has been a lesson in trust and in the faithfulness of God to his children.

Don’t ignore your body. I said something like that about 20 blogs ago, but I felt today it was worth  saying again. If you try and deny weakness, illness, then you may miss a wonderful drawing near of the love and strength of God. By all means pursue healing unless you know God has said “No” for one reason or another. But however vigorously you pursue that, don’t deny the thorn in your flesh. Let God draw near, there.

My prayer is that you would know the sweet presence I have experienced at times of weakness, or to use the words of Paul that you would experience God saying to you, “My strength is made perfect in weakness. My grace is sufficient for you.” If you think this is anti-healing you have missed the point. Read it again and be blessed.

Much love

Kenny

Having had to get rid of my books, as old books can exacerbate my lung condition, I am in the frustrating position of not being able to verify quotes I want to use in my blog. However I am remembering a phrase from somewhere by someone: “Life consists in a whole lot of little deaths followed by little resurrections.” I think it was Brother Roger of Taize who said that or something near to that , but can’t be sure. However today in the midst of a season of life where much is changing for my family and for me myself as well as for my congregation, I found myself thinking about this quote and it seemed to bring life to me.

I think the particular aspect that brought me life is this: It is ok to mourn. In fact Jesus promised a blessing could be found in that. Am I allowing myself the space to mourn and through mourning and saying goodbye to certain things allowing myself to move into all the life in Christ that I can know in the present and the future? I think I almost accept things too quickly. I guess part of “faith” seems to be that one “accepts” things. I have no quarrel about that. What I perhaps don’t allow weight for is that mourning is important as well and is allowable. I am looking back to  an interesting examination by an Occupational Health doctor a few months back. I explained that I had to give up squash for golf; then I had to give up golf for gentle cycle rides along the towpath of the canal; then I had to give that up and go for gentle walks along the same towpath. I actually enjoyed each of these activities, but while speaking to the doctor I realised I had not allowed myself to mourn at each stage. I had moved on without mourning a loss. He then asked me if I had ever mourned my loss of health. I realised with quite a shock that I had not. I was so much focussed on adjusting, so focussed on how many people were praying for my healing, that I had not allowed myself to mourn that obvious loss.

I think I want to say today, that faith is more than a stiff upper lip and stoicism. Living faith in the Living God has space for more than that. It has space for mourning as well as for resurrection.

I am wondering if there is a loss or grief that you may need to be honest about before God, so that you can feel permissible pain and allow yourself a permissible and indeed necessary grieving. We don’t grieve our losses as those who have no hope, but as believers, we do grieve nonetheless.

I can see all sorts of applicable mournings poking their heads up into the surface of my thoughts gasping to be expressed. For example, what about the mourning of the loss of songs and hymns, psalms and paraphrases and styles of worship that were meaningful in our younger days  of faith journey but now seem to be outlawed in the church of today, and judged as inadequate?  But, I will have to ask these thoughts to go down and swim about some more before they surface again.

For today, do you need to remember and apply in unexpected ways Jesus promise, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” ?

May God bless you as you pursue your Christian walk, a walk of little deaths and little resurrections.

Kenny

PS – 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 like things to be quite casual in style when it comes to a Sunday Morning Service. That is just taste. It is neither better nor worse than those who prefer things to be formal. I like to dress informally because I am coming into the presence of my Father with my brothers and sisters. It is family time. At the same time I respect deeply those who still feel they should put on their Sunday best for  coming before the King of kings and the Lord of lords. In fact casualness  in the pulpit  these days is giving casualness a bad name. It is becoming a deliberate, consciously worked at casualness, so much so that I would rather now a minister looked like a minister, robes and all,  if  the alternative is body buffed studied and deliberate coolness or worked at mirror perfected untidiness of dress or hair style. I would rather ministers looked like ministers than models posing. The times are narcissistic enough without having to have narcissists in the pulpit!  I am thinking mostly about male ministers when I say this.  You female ministers have a difficult enough time in certain sectors of the church.  God bless you and good on you! My fellow male ministers: I actually think that carefully styled stubble in the pulpit from macho or not so macho males shows something much more spiritually worrying than an academic hood!  It seems “Cool is King” in the pulpit!

Well, that is what I strongly think and I am sticking to it…but maybe not for good. You see,  I have not always thought that and may change my mind again another ten years down the line. It is what I currently think and I believe I have good reason and evidence as to why it is true, but I would not add  “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” to such  pronouncements, as though God by necessity backs up every one of my thoughts and utterances! That is a phrase I have never prayed before or after a sermon in several decades of preaching. There are several reasons I refuse to say that. Sometimes I have preached drivel and God does not speak drivel! At other times I have heard others preach drivel and attach the name of God to it. Also, I  have heard myself  being quoted in someone else’s sermon… “As Kenny says…” At times I sit there thinking, “Did I say that? I don’t think I said that. In fact I know I didn’t say that because I don’t even believe that! Will others think I did say that and do believe that?” It is actually quite an uncomfortable experience to have your name attached to something you never said and would never dream of saying in time or eternity! If you are preaching this Sunday, I say to you  with deepest reverence toward God and respect toward your calling, “I hope that as you preach God’s Word this Sunday there is not a voice in  heaven saying: “Did I say that? I am sure I didn’t say that. I know I didn’t! I don’t even believe that about myself, about my people, about my purposes. That is not my heart at all…”

In fact let me notch up the being serious a bit more: if you preach this Sunday and dare to attach the name of God, Father Son and Holy Spirit as a blanket covering to all you say, you may well be guilty of breaking the commandment  not  to take the name of the Lord our God in vain. For those who preach and lead in congregations, to take the name of the Lord in vain at least in part means attaching the name of God to something He is not doing and not saying. It is to speak forth my own thoughts and ideas  and schemes and manipulatively to give them extra weight by attaching the name of God to them. It is to use the Name of God in my own power playing game to steer things in my direction. Please ask God to help you not to break the third commandment. Don’t treat the name of Jesus the way it is often treated in the church and the world these days. He is such a  convenient coat stand on which so many people seem to  hang their own ideas, campagains and agendas.  He has been hijacked by the politically correct in the world and in a poodle church that merely follows the world in the manner of some Prime ministers I could mention following Presidents I could mention,  rather than offering another way and pointing to another kingdom.  And while I am talking about breaking commandments, make sure too as you preach that you are not breaking another commandment by bearing false witness against your neighbour – for in Christ God moved into the neighbourhood of our humanity and made his home among us. He became our nighbour. It is not nice to lie about or misrepresent your neighbour. It never has a good result nor does it lead to harmonious, happy relationships.

I like humour in preaching so long as it is not overdone or merely self indulgent. At the same time, perhaps in this blog those who know me have learned something that  you didn’t know about me before:  I always took and still take preaching and teaching God’s word as the most joyful and yet the most fearful calling on earth.  I dont think I take myself that seriously, I may be worng, but I do take my calling serioulsy whether that calling is being worked out in a church pulpit or the pulpit of a blog! James tells us a whole forrest can be set on fire by a single spark or  flame. In the same way, the tongue of a preacher can do immense damage. It can be like the rudder of a ship that wrecks the ship because it sends it in a wrong direction.  That is why James also tells us that not many should desire to be teachers of God’s flock. We will be judged more strictly. Rightly so, for the tongue of a preacher  can bless or ruin, build up or destroy  lives and congregations, denominations and even, as history proves, the course of  nations.

A simple plea: If you do decide to say “In the Name of…” before or after you preach this weekend, at least expand upon it lest those who listen or you yourself get the wrong idea and feed that idea to the extent that you believe the lie yourself or hope they do:  If you say it, may you mean this; “In the Name of Our Father who knows I get it so wrong sometimes but forgives, in the Name of the Son who is the true Shepherd of wandering sheep and wandering shepherds, in the Name of the Holy Spirit who can only add His blessing to truth not lie, I stand before you today and dare to speak…God have mercy… God help me…”

This Sunday if you are preaching may it be your prayer for yourself , as it is mine for you, that you do not cause confusion on  a hopefully listening earth or in a most definitely  listening heaven.

God bless you in your holy calling

Your brother in the Lord,

Kenny

PS – 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 reading yet another  poem today  by Kenneth Steven. It is  about a Farmer’s wife he once set out to visit. When he arrives at her home, a “gust of dogs “comes out the door as she opens it,  followed by herself.  She comes out with a shining smiling face and clear blue eyes. She then mentions her husband, dead for 30 years and as she does so, she is hit by a tsunami of emotion that make her eyes “melt against the sun” and her voice buckle. His description of her  reminded me of many people I have met in my life and ministry thus far. Some of them have indeed been farmers’  wives, but not all of them.

I love the beauty of such writing. More than that, it helps explain what I felt I had to write about today. In yesterdays blog I talked about the real Jesus. I guess today is about the real Christian. What does real Christian life look like? To me it looks like that farmer’s wife in that poem. We have been knocked down, perhaps many times, in the course of life: perhaps to quote Spurgeon, we have stood at a graveside where we have buried half our heart or more… and yet somehow by the grace of God we carry on, to greet people and to greet the day.

This is the mark of the true apostles of the faith, those sent out into the world by Jesus with the good news of the already here but not yet Kingdom. This is the mark too of every  follower of Jesus to varying extent. You are the real thing if you have eyes that can shine and also melt. You are the real thing if your voice sings the praises of God, speaks to people with friendliness  and yet at times that same voice can buckle. In fact if your eyes cannot both shine and melt, and your voice cannot sing and buckle, I wonder if we can say we really follow a crucified and risen Christ… indeed I wonder if we are living in reality at all….

I saw a strange sight on T.V a few years ago. A preacher was being hailed by his T.V. host as being someone who God had raised up to show what the blessed life looks like. Apparently it looks like owning a mansion, having a jet and sitting on a gold throne in a T.V. studio. It means wearing a Rolex instead of a Timex. Not long after that in our prayer meeting I heard a dear man with mental difficulties praying like this: “Lord, I thank you for the crocuses especially the yellow ones. When I see them they make me happy, they sort of make me feel I have come through another year. Thank you too that when I needed to know the time I saw a big clock in the street.” He went on to thank God for warm water for his bath each day, expressing that this was “such a blessing, a wonderful blessing.” I think despite all his suffering, he knows more about the real thing, more about the blessed life than a man sitting on a gold throne being envied by the world and a gone-astray church “audience.” I think Paul would say of him that he truly is a follower of Jesus. In fact let the last word be with Paul today:

2 Corinthians Chapter 4.6 – 11

“6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. 8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; 10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. 11 For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.”

God Bless

Kenny

PS – 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 is probably confusing nature. It is no doubt used to being confused by now, but snow in Edinburgh when it is almost May? There must be animals either thinking they came out of hibernation too soon or being tempted to go back into it too early.

At times in my Christian life I have felt that the seasons are not right for what God has been saying in my deepest heart to come out into the open and walk around in full view. It seems that what God is saying in my heart is not necessarily what the dominant message of the moment seems to be in Christian circles. I sort of feel that might be the case with this blog today. Perhaps it should have stayed hidden in hibernation for another while, but I feel prompted to let it out to walk about, and I am yielding to that temptation. I am, in a way, coming out in this blog…

I think I have been sensing the sadness of God the Father. I don’t mean sadness at what is happening in the world, but sadness about what is happening in the church, and most especially in churches that have a reputation of being alive. Years ago I remember reading a book called “My Father is the Gardener” by Colin Urquhart. Due to my lung condition I have had to get rid of all books that have been in my possession for a while because of an allergy to mould spores, which means I have departed company with hundreds of books. “My Father is the Gardener” is no longer on my book shelves. As far as I remember towards the end of that “story” about renewal in the Holy Spirit, there is a prophecy in which someone expresses the sadness of the Father in the midst of a Christian conference  in these simple terms: “I am looking for my Son. Where is my Son, Jesus.? I am looking for my Son. Can you tell me where I will find my Son? Will I find him here?” I guess that is what has been sleeping and breathing deeply with a slow but steady heart beat in me for a few years now; The Father is looking in the Church for His Son Jesus.

My version of that is if it does not look like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, if it does not look, feel, smell like the Jesus I read of there, I don’t want anything to do with it. For a long time as a charismatic I have gone with the mantra that God offends the mind to reveal the heart. I still believe it, but it is not a blanket principle to excuse anything and everything that is done supposedly in the Name of Jesus Christ. I used to encourage people to be open  minded when the Spirit of God is moving, because sometimes things can look bizarre. I still believe that but again it is not a blanket principle. Now I am older and have less energy due to illness, I am really not going to commend anything that I have to surround with Kingdom of God health warnings  which shows that ultimately that event or that ministry is  perhaps as healthy or good for me or you as  a packet of cigarettes. Life is simpler  for me now. If it does not look like the Jesus I read of in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, then I don’t want anything to do with it, no matter how popular it may be,  and I will not encourage others to take anything to do with it either…though of course if they feel different and want to be involved they are free so to do.  To those who try and wriggle out of what I am saying theologically by saying that we do not know Christ after the days of his flesh now but as he is in risen glory, as though that were an excuse for ignoring the Jesus of Matthew, Mark Luke and John, I say simply, you are wrong! It is the same Jesus who is now glorified. He still has the same heart and the same priorities.

Which leads me to this; what is His priority? To save us form our sins of course. But what is sin? I know all the technical biblical definitions such as missing the mark or crossing a line etc etc. But though these are the dictionary definitions and are indeed accurate, in themselves they do  not quite get to the heart  of things concerning what sin means to God and to man. I am not sure I have ever got closer to the heart breaking reality of what sin is than when I read these words in Jean Vanier’s , “Jesus, gift of love.” He says this;

“Throughout his life and ministry Jesus reveals a new and deeper meaning of sin. It is not just disobedience to a written law, the refusal or incapacity to obey because of the power of passion and pride. Sin is the breakage of a relationship of love, it is the breakage of covenant, the breakage of trust. It is to say “no” to God and to the vision of love; it is to turn one’s back on Jesus; “I do not want you and your saving  power, your promises or your love. I want to do things on my own, my way.” Sin is to work against love and communion. … that is why Jesus rejoices when he meets people who have discovered the emptiness of power, of things and of flickering distractions, and who seek communion with him; and he rejoices when he meets little children who want to be held and when he meets the  poor, the weak, crying out for recognition and relationship. In some mysterious way Jesus is consoled by the cry of the poor and the broken. They awaken the cry to give love hidden in his own heart, The disciples do not understand Jesus and his desire to give love; they are too taken up with their own projects, power and the need for messianic and spiritual success… Jesus is a lover…crying out to give himself…” (Jesus, Gift of Love, Page 59.)

I had to shut the book and sit and think and after a  few tears coming to my eyes because of the beauty of the writing and the fact that the writing was so so true, I turned to pray.

There is one test for whether Jesus is really present somewhere or in someone. Is there  sharing in His joy when the weak and the poor come into  relationship with him? Is that at the centre of why I live or at the centre of what I am involved in as a Christian? Am I organising my thinking, my life, my priorities, my service around this Jesus of Matthew Mark Luke and John.

I have been thinking about what church I might go to when I retire officially. I think it would be a church in which I can look and find  Jesus the Son of God being honoured for Who He has always been and always will be and wants to be in the life of His Church.  For me that is now more important than the style of worship or whether that church is famous for being evangelical or charismatic. If I can ask this without being judgmental: Will I find it easy to find such a church wherever we end up living?

Mm… not  very sure….

God Bless

Kenny

Today I am remembering childhood friends Michael and Morris Maguire.  They were Roman Catholic and introduced me to the practice of genuflecting as well as introducing me to the idea of holy water when I was 7 years old! Apart from that I had  no close contact with the world of Catholicism until a few years ago when I spoke at a meeting for Catholic Charismatics. It was  a humbling experience. I am not sure I have ever been in a meeting that seemed more open to the Spirit. It was a genuine joy and inspiration to be with them.

The remembered feeling though was I had stepped inside the Tardis. There was more to this Catholic thing than Michael and Morris’s local chapel in Bishopbriggs. There was a whole church world there that I knew so little about.

In a sense this time of illness has awakened a similar awareness. The world of people struggling with ill health, whose life seems governed by hospital appointments and physical or mental limitations is  huge. I remember reading a remark by the Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon that Sorrow has a large family, well so does illness and weakness.

I don’t think I have ever mentioned Spurgeon and Henri Nouwen in the same blog. Today though as I remembered Spurgeon’s comment I am remembering a phrase from Henri Nouwen; “It is not easy to be unwell.” I find that is a sentence that seems like holy ground to me. In a few words it seems to capture the awareness, the knowing the compassion of God for those who are not well.

I live most of the time in a wider church world that believes in healing that believes in cure. In such a world it is even more difficult to be unwell. It is not I don’t believe in God healing but somehow it is possible to feel like a failure to be ill in a church that believes in healing. If you are in such a church, I hope that you find the balance that I have found in my congregation that makes that difficulty easier: cure and care need to both be present .

I cant remember which of my present favourite writers said this -I think it was Jean Vanier. Whoever it was, they said in one of their books that cure without care can become aggressive and almost violent. I see this in some charismatic congregations. There is no thought about the effects of  making an ill person stand for a long time, because that is the way the Spirit must work; folk have to stand to receive ministry.  Can the Spirit not work if an ill person sits? I have seen on God TV ministers punching even kicking ill people. Somewhere they have heard of Smith Wigglesworth methodology and presume again that method is power.

Often odd behaviour is explained on the basis of one passage, namely that there was an  occasion Jesus made some paste with earth and spittle and rubbed it on the eyes of a blind man. I have heard charismatic preachers defend the most bizarre ways of treating people based on that story. Listen; spittle was felt to have medicinal properties in Jesus day. What Jesus was doing was not odd in the slightest. On the contrary it was a sign that Jesus was offering healing. It was a sign that the blind man himself would have understood and taken great comfort not confusion from.

To those who care about cure, I want to ask a question; do you care about care? Many in this Tardis world of illness and weakness would be greatly blessed and helped if you remembered both when you pray for us and speak to us.

On behalf of those inside the Tardis

Kenny

PS – 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 intensely dislike being made to do icebreakers! However I do recall one that had a profound effect upon me. What I am sharing happened years ago, but it had an impact that still endures. I was  attending some sort of committee meeting for Urban Priority Area Parishes of the  Church of Scotland. Details such as  who led the opening devotions are hazy in my memory. Whoever it was, they  asked the rest of us to think of  this question and then to share our answers with our neighbour: “When you don’t feel like getting out of bed in the morning, what helps you get out of bed and move into the day?” Well, there were some predictable schoolboy humour jokes about toilets and so on! Unexpectedly, I found my dislike of icebreakers disappearing – well actually my dislike still remains but the truth is I forgot this was an icebreaker! I felt I had been faced with one of the most profound questions I had ever been asked to think about. Beyond having to work for a living, attending to family, pursuing a call, seeing to other responsibilities etc, what gets us up and ready to greet the day when we don’t feel like doing that at all? The answer that came into my mind surprised me. From deep within, in that place where God’s children simply know things in their knower, came  a sentence that I have never forgotten. “What gets me up when I don’t feel like getting up is that there is Someone who thinks more highly and warmly of me than I think of myself.” That is really what I want to say today: God thinks more highly of you and more warmly  than you have perhaps realised. To Jesus, you are the pearl of great price he came searching for. He found a treasure when he found you.

Almost 40 years ago I heard a recording of a wonderful  if at times  controversial bible teacher called David Pawson. In the particular talk I am thinking about as I write this blog, he shared a memory of being at a big conference. He looked out and saw thousands of people worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ with great joy. He felt that Jesus said to him at that moment, “It was worth it all!” He asked, “What do you mean Lord?” This is what he believed the Lord replied: “It was worth the spitting on my face, the ripping of my back, the pulling out of my beard, the nails in my hands and feet, the crown of thorns upon my head. It was worth the blackness and forsakenness of the cross. I am looking at the fruit of my travail and I am well pleased.”

Something that is  a strength can easily become a weakness in its unguarded or counterfeit form. There is something in the Scottish spiritual D.N.A  that I recognise when I come across it in people, namely a proper sense of humility before God.  Charismatic preachers from other cultures have at times come here and have ridden roughshod over this,  mocked  it and  have  tried to convince us that  it can be wrong to attach “If it be your will Father” to the end of our prayers. They would justify this by saying that we know from the bible and the ministry of Jesus what the will of God is and so we are not to say, “If it be your will,”  as that means a lack of faith. It may be the defiant and fighting  Scot within me, but  every time I hear teaching as to why I cannot add “if it be your will” to my prayers, it actually  makes me rejoice in saying it all the more! In truth however, beyond the part a defiant spirit may indeed play in such a reaction, I actually believe “If it be your will”  is not a cop out, nor does it indicate lack of faith but  is rather a genuine heart posture of genuine humility before Almighty God which much of the charismatic world has forgotten and needs to relearn. Perhaps once we return with confidence to our unique identity as Scottish believers rather than give up our birthright and blessing to please  frustrated visiting conference speakers who want us to be like them, this could be Scotland’s contribution to the charismatic world –  to share the need to humble ourselves beneath God’s mighty hand. When will visiting speakers stop mocking our Scottishness?  When will we stop accepting that mockery? At best it is rude, at worst it is stopping us finding or re-finding our unique identity as Scottish Christians. It is wrong to make David fight in Saul’s armour. It is wrong to make sport of Scottish spirituality  the way that the Philistine lords made sport of Samson. One day Scotland’s spiritual hair will grow again, the lion will find its roar and idols that have been set up in the House of the Lord in Scotland will fall. Even as I was praying briefly earlier on today I found such a large place in God as I allowed myself to say at the end of my prayers, “If it be thy will.” That did not limit my faith but rather increased it.That phrase for me opens up vistas  in God that are awesomely large, almost frighteningly so. I remember when God met with me on one occasion, that all I could say was “Big God…Big God…”

However, having said all that, there is a counterfeit humility that can lead us into dark waters. It can lead me into the lie that I am worthless to God… and a lie that most certainly is.  We may indeed be unworthy but we are not worthless and there is all the difference in the world between the two concepts. I hope you know that however low a value you may pin to yourself, Jesus Christ looks at each one of his flock every day and watches over us as we sleep and says, “They were worth it. When I look at him, when I look at her, I see fruit for my travail and I am well pleased.”

Here is how I know each morning whether it is Christ I am listening to or someone or something else;  when I look at my face in the morning in the mirror, do I smile at what I see because I am looking at someone deeply loved,  or do I avert my eyes in disgust because looking at my own face brings on feelings of shame or failure or inadequacy or of being a disappointment to people and to God? I will make a disclosure to you all; most mornings I smile at myself in the mirror but now and then I shake my head and look away. I hope the next time you and I look in a mirror at the start of the day we will catch ourselves smiling at ourselves with the warmth and kindness of the steadfast love of the Lord which is new every morning. Perhaps that should be our daily icebreaker! Indeed that  is not just my hope for you, it is my heartfelt prayer as I write this blog. “May it please you Lord, to let it be so, Amen.”

PS – 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 could not resist putting the photograph below in a blog… because I think it is true! I LOVE dogs, and I love cats is probably my honest confession, and honest confession is what this blog is about. I am remembering a dog I had called Snoopy. I am sure someone will tell me I am mistaken but he at least seemed to have a sense of guilt! If he did something wrong there really was an atmosphere about the house. It only lifted when you gave him the  opportunity to come into the joy of forgiveness. If you asked if he was sorry, he would come tearing out of wherever he was hiding and show demonstrably how happy he was to be reinstated.

This is a very short blog today. A dog can feel the difference when the air and atmosphere is clear. Could it be that you need to come into the joy of forgiveness today? Is there something concerning which you need to simply say,“Sorry,” to the Lord and if need be to others as well?  David speaks of the heaviness that can be upon us when the  spiritual air is  not clear between ourselves and the Lord and about the joy of being forgiven. Let’s be humble enough to learn from a dog  and  a king.

Read these words and think about them

Psalm 32King James Version (KJV)

32 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

2 Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.

4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.

5 I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.

You might want to click on  the address below as well!

God bless,

Kenny

PS – 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 like the Letter of James in the New Testament. Well, I say “like,” but that is maybe not the most honest word for me to use, for I find it uncomfortably straightforward in the way that it addresses what it means to pursue a commitment to Christ in real daily living. (Take time to read it over the next couple of days and you will see what I mean.) It leaves no room for my sin to manoeuvre! One of the things we are told by James is that we should be slow to take offence. Paul tells us that one of the characteristics of love is that it is not quick to take offence. Taking offence seems to be so much part of the way humanity is,  that we can make a reason for taking offence out of almost anything and indeed out of nothing at all. I have been reading 2 Corinthians lately. It seems that at least some in Corinth took offence because Paul would not take money from them for preaching the gospel. He could have and it would have been permissible, indeed Paul calls it  his “right”  which he chose to set aside. There is nothing wrong with those who preach or teach being paid. On the contrary, the Bible tells us if someone does that task well, they are to  be paid double. I have never had the courage to tell that to any of my congregations in a serious and convincing way!  Perhaps if pastors did so  they would  they would make some discoveries they would rather not make.  Firstly, they might discover whether the congregation felt their pastor  was preaching and teaching well…or not.  Secondly, they might soon find out whether their congregation really wanted to be a biblical church after all! According to my bible,  amongst many other things, there  are two matters that a biblical church should be attending to: paying hard working pastors double and learning to move in the gifts of Spirit in a church service, especially learning  to prophesy… but I will not go off on that tangent … at least not today… and yes, I am being deliberately provocative and enjoying being so!

Paul himself had made his own personal decision before God not to make his living  from his ministry. It was a decision he strenuously guarded, and it caused offence in Corinth. I find that amazing; taking offence because someone wants to offer you something freely and forego their right to payment.  Mind you, as I wrote that last sentence it sort of reminded me of a bad tempered Board Meeting in one church where someone suggested that the gift of a piano should not be accepted, nor should we record thanks for it in the minutes as it was given anonymously and the person had not asked for permission to give it! Anyway,  back now to Paul and his strained relationship with the Corinthian church.  It seems that some influential voices, either native or visiting Corinth, had suggested Paul’s unwillingness to profit from the gospel showed he was not a true Apostle. It was, quite frankly,  a ridiculous reason for the Corinthians to take offence.  Perhaps it also shows us how  the seeds of Prosperity Gospel  thinking adulterated the stream of church life even at the start.

I simply invite you as I invite myself right now to look at where  we may be  holding on to a real or imagined offence. Do you or I  perhaps need to acknowledge that we are being ridiculous? Even if the offence is real, it still remains true that love is not quick to take offence.

So a challenge: this week, let’s see if we can let go of the strong urge to take offence when it rears its head.  If you feel “found out” as you read this bog, then learn once more the simple fact that the Bible as so often happens, has your number and has read your emails. That should not surprise us, for all Scripture is breathed by the God who made us, who knows what is in us, who loves us and wants us to find the narrow path that leads to life in all its fullness.

God Bless

Kenny

I was so greatly blessed one day not long ago when reading in Henri Nouwen’s “A Spirituality for Living” I came across the story of “The Little River.”

This little river thought to itself, “ I could become  a big river.” It worked hard, but it came against a big rock. The little river said, “I’m going to get round this rock.” The little river pushed with all its might and it got itself around the rock!

Soon the river came against a big wall, but it kept pushing forward! Eventually the river  tunnelled its way through. Then the river came to a huge  forest. The river said, “I’ll go ahead anyway and just force these trees down.”  On it  flowed.

But now the river found itself at the edge of an enormous desert with the hot sun shining relentlessly upon it. The river said, “I’m going to manage to get through this desert! I can do it!” But the hot sand soon began to soak up the whole river until the river became a small muddy pool. At that point the river heard a voice say, “Just surrender. I will  lift you up.”  The sun lifted up the river, and made the river into a cloud. It carried the river over the  vast expanse of the desert and rain poured forth to make distant fields fertile, rich and fruitful.

I will leave you to do your own thinking and be blessed as you do.

Kenny

PS – 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.

To those privileged with the responsibility of preaching and teaching; two things to think about:

Firstly, a principle the Bible mentions:

“If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”

Secondly, something I heard a minister say that I have always sought to remember:

“Your task is to feed the sheep not to amuse the goats.”

I think that is all I have to say …

God Bless you as you bless others this Sunday

Kenny

Not long ago I caught a glimpse of an incredible sight; a preacher of the gospel stepping off a private jet plane surrounded by body guards. It was as though his stature was shown not simply by  his obvious wealth but by inaccessibility and unapproachability. You had to go through other people in order to get to him. I know the horse has bolted long ago, and it is probably too late to do anything about it, but there seem to be false ideas of Christian leadership gaining ground these days which though they may not have the same trappings of wealth etc. as in the scene I described, are nonetheless based on a model of an inaccessibility which proves stature and importance and authority. The model thought about in diagram form is a triangle:  you have the leader and then underneath the leader there are his or her trusted people, who have trusted people under them and so on. However I was reading in Corinthians today about the leadership heart of Paul. For him as an Apostle, the triangle was the other way round. It is not that he did not care about good ordering in the church or failed to realise the importance of establishing sensible  local church leadership, but it is his own relationship to all of that as a leader of leaders which got hold of me today. For  Paul the model was an upside down triangle. He bore the weight of it all. He  was not separated from it. He was deeply involved. Listen to what he says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11:

Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?  (N.I.V.)

I hear a lot these days about leadership and new forms of church and much of that thinking is good and necessary and has to happen. I don’t believe I am saying this because I am an old dog who cannot learn new tricks, though it may sound like that.  I have just one thing to say into all the talk about leadership.  Be like Christ and Paul. Don’t absolve yourself of the task of caring. Here is a strange thing I have observed: there are churches that are growing that have not bought into the new ways of thinking, nor do they run on a theology that I think is biblical or correct. Somewhere behind that growth you will find a senior pastor or  a leadership team who genuinely care about the sheep, and the sheep lost and found know it. If you are a leader I ask you, “Have you become separated?”  If you aspire to leadership I ask you the question, “Check the motive. Is  it so that you have a lot of folk under you?” One of my elders  from a former church were I was senior pastor was in a gathering of people which seemed to be permeated by pride as each person boasted about all the people they had under them. Eventually he spoke up and said, “The whole town is under me, or will be soon.” Well, the room was impressed by such confidence and vision. After a pause they asked my elder what line of business he was in and he replied, “I am the grave digger!”

Bearing the weight of care seems to be the defining mark of  Christian leadership. I remember a bishop I esteem greatly looking across the table where we were eating together and saying, “Who would be a leader Kenny?” Elijah when he called Elisha more or less said the same; “Oh, what have I done to you Elisha in placing this call upon you.” If you cannot identify with this then you need to question your leadership or your sense of call into it. It is not reaching a height but going lower and lower under the needs of the church and indeed the world. It means kneeling on the earth, where people’s feet have become dirty, cut and sore and washing them.

Leaders:  Are you truly connected, or the more you have advanced in your leadership is there less and less connection with people as you eat fine food, drink fine wine, play more golf and talk more ideas with other leaders? I have been on the edges of that temptation in Conference Speaking days, and it is a temptation. Please, please, don’t yield to it.

Aspiring leaders:  Who would be a leader after the model of Paul or Christ? Do you really want to go lower than  where others can be bothered going with people?

People: Pray for leaders and aspiring leaders who care.

God bless

Kenny

PS – 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, as I woke up, I simply asked God to lay something on my heart to share with you. I believe He simply said, “Remember there was a serpent in Eden.” I guess today I am issuing a sort of warning. I prefer not to speak in a warning  tone, but if you walked past someone sitting in a house that was on fire, it would be the  loving thing to do to shout as loud as you could to them in no uncertain terms, “Get out of there, right now! You are in danger!” I don’t think that after escaping they would say to the messenger of their danger, “Could you not have spoken to me a bit more gently and kindly. You frightened me!”

It is always best to try and speak to people in tones of God’s kindness. At the same time it is interesting that in 1 Timothy Chapter 3 verse 16 Paul says, “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting….” It is perhaps in a combination of these 3 words that I want to speak to you today through this word, “Remember there was a snake in Eden.” I am sure it was no coincidence that  when I opened my bible today for my daily reading, that within a few verses I came across these words: “I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the Serpent’s cunning your minds may somehow be led astray….” 1 Corinthians Chapter 11 verse 3.

It is a while since this has happened to me with regard to blogging, but I feel that perhaps there are some who read this blog who need a warning today. You may think you are standing well for the Lord, but that can be such a dangerous moment that Scripture tells us  when that is our estimation of our state, we need to take heed and to walk carefully at such times lest we fall.

I don’t want to turn this into a sermon but just to pass on the specific warning I  feel the Lord gave me: you will never have such a level of victory, or such an overwhelming spiritual experience that you can forget about the Serpent. He was in a perfect garden. He sought opportunities to come into the life of the  perfect Sinless One, Jesus Christ. The first thought that came to mind after that word from the Lord to me this morning, was of a man I knew who was in a backslidden state. He said that if only God met him in an overwhelming way, he knew he would never go astray again. I was there the night he was prayed for and he did receive a wonderful overwhelming experience of  the love  of His Heavenly Father. He repeated his conviction that now he would never ever go astray. Within a week he had fallen out with the Church, with the Lord, with me as minister and he was never seen in church again in all the years I remained in that place as minister. He kept his wife and family from attending too. His case has not been unique in my experience. I could name a short list of people who have indeed tasted of the power of the age to come but then fallen away.  I saw them receive and I saw them walk away. This is perhaps my only remaining sadness as a parish minister and preacher of the gospel.  For  every other type of sadness I can find hope. The bible tells me  however that it is impossible to restore to repentance those who have tasted of the powers of the age to come, but then fall away. I am so glad the Lord has not left it to us to know for sure when someone has crossed that line, but he does warn us that it is a real possibility. He does not give empty promises or warnings.

Whenever I hear someone say something like. “Well, the devil will never get me that way again…” I shudder with a shudder I have felt at  similar sounding  announcements . Let me repeat there was a Serpent in the very garden which God had made and pronounced good. There was nothing wrong with the garden, any more than there was something wrong or doubtful or questionable about the goodness of the experience of the Spirit  the man I have just told you about was blessed with. One of the gifts of the Spirit is the gift of discernment of spirits, which helps us know what is of God, what is of the devil and what is of the flesh. It is a gift that is one hundred percent accurate unlike prophecy. It has to be, because one can do incalculable  harm if one attributes something to the wrong source. If you don’t have that gift, if it is not something that you know operates in you as a gift that you have never earned or learned, then ask God for that gift. Sometimes we have not because we ask not. The experience that man had was a genuine experience of the Holy Spirit of God. The Spirit Himself bore witness to the genuineness of what was happening. The lesson is clear but let me repeat it: there is no spiritual experience no matter how wonderful and genuine that means we can forget about the Serpent. Again I remind you of what I have already said, that the  bible tells us that when we think we are standing tall and strong, we should take heed, lest we fall. I am not being kill joy, rather as Rev. Jim Graham so frequently says when he is teaching the Bible, “I did not write this stuff. I am only telling you what it says!”

Most pastors speak to those who are struggling in order to help them up the way and on the way. Today in the Name of Christ I am speaking to those who may feel that you are in a good place spiritually, who may even feel that you are on the heights spiritually. Beware! Take a warning! The serpent can turn up in beautiful places, beautiful moments and beautiful people. Walk carefully and humbly with God in this particular season of blessing and always, lest like Eve in a perfect garden and many more men and women since, you too are deceived.

God bless

Kenny

PS – 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 funny how we can find reasons to dislike something just because we are not good at that very thing.  A confession: I am hopeless at taking photographs. Despite the fact it has never been easier in a sense, with the advances in mobile phones and so on, I am still hopeless. All the technology in the world cannot hide my incompetence. I was looking at some photographs taken by one of my nieces of her wee girl. I can see that they are perfectly framed, but know that give me a month of Sundays and longer, and I would never be able to produce something of similar merit. It is one of my secret long living shames hiding there among many others, such as that at school I was never able to make an owl noise with my hands or whistle like a Shepherd! While I am at it, another long standing embarrassment comes to mind: I have never quite managed to make out the Sleeping Warrior on Arran!  There, it is out in the open: “Thank you Jesus!”   In fact now I am released from the shame of not seeing this wretched man let me give you the lurid details.  At times I have even tried to help others see it/him, not knowing what on earth I was pointing at! Once I thought I had seen it/him at last but when I pointed it out to the person manfully persisting in trying to show me he told me it was not where I was looking at all! He persisted and persisted  saying, “`But look, you must see it!”  Eventually I lied: “Oh you mean there? Oh yes, it is really clear. I see it now!” By  the same way I see the same thing with folk being prayed for in Charismatic meetings: “Are you feeling better?” “No, no difference!” “Let’s pray some more…” “Are you feeling better now?” “No!” “Let’s s pray some more then…”  In  front of 4000 people only people with quite weird personalities can take this without embarrassment and without eventually cracking. Most will be reduced within a few minutes to saying, “ Yes, yes, YES, the pain has gone!” and everyone claps as you limp back to your chair, not only not healed but now you realise that not quite all the crowd is clapping after all! Despite you trying to put on your most convincing “I have just been healed” face,  the more discerning among the 4,000 know you have just lied as well! What a relief it is to get these secrets out there! By the way, do not send me a photograph of the Sleeping Warrior in response even if you do mark him out in fluorescent paint to point him out for me… and don’t send me a “name it and claim it” healing book either! Been there, got the T Shirt!

Now that I have got the honest confession out of the way, I want you to believe that what I am writing today is not to hide my inadequacy as a photographer behind lofty sounding spiritual principles. As far as I can tell, God’s message to some of us this very day may well be, “Before you take the photograph…” That may sound a pretty vague message, but I have to try and be true to what I think God wants to say.

When you get some sort of revelation from God, you don’t aways get the interpretation, but in this case I think I know what God is wanting to say today through that half sentence. I was looking not long ago at a photograph of a time when my son and myself were staying on the shores of Loch Fyne, with some other fine fellows. Actually we nicknamed ourselves, “The Fyne Dukes!” It sounds like a brand name that could be an umbrella over all sorts of produce with the vaguest of links to Scotland. In fact maybe I will copyright it and sell it to you if you want to buy it! Anyway, we had a wonderful time, just wonderful. We were blessed in so many ways, including by the Northern Lights showing up on our last night. I found my heart bursting with gratitude to God for all sorts of reasons, and to this day am thankful for the memories, for the goodness of God and for the generosity of the couple who allowed us the  use of their beautiful house.

However, my photographs don’t really capture  what I found so heartbreakingly beautiful about the place and the whole experience. C. S. Lewis one talked about a beauty that was so extreme it could break and heal your heart. I think that is the sort of phrase I would use to describe actually being there with the Dukes of Fyne on Loch Fyne. In many ways I was at a very weak place in terms of my illness and coming to terms with the  inevitable retirement on health grounds. I encountered in these days the beauty of God in nature and in my fellow Dukes who looked after me so well. All of that  did have  both a breaking and a healing effect…

…. enough tangents! Back to the photographs! They were probably some of the best I have taken. In a sense they are accurate, but the most accurate remembering is in the banks of my emotional memory, in my heart. It is good to be like Mary and “ponder things” in our heart.The photographs took seconds to take, but I must have stared at the  actual scenes  fact for a cumulative total of many hours. Kenneth Steven sums up  so well what I am trying to say  in his book of poems, “Salt and Light.” In a beautiful poem called “Pictures of Assynt” he speaks about another type of picture taking than the  click  of anI iPhone or any other type of camera shutter.  He says, “Let the eyes filter these pictures instead, through the dark room of the mind, into the pages of the heart.”

It is sad that many people’s only access to some beauty that they have seen in the  past  will be iPhone photographs. A sudden click, and then moving on. The truth is that nothing but gazing and pondering and  storing things in the heart can then conjure up remembrance of truest beauty and make the blessing live once more.

By “Before you take the photograph…,” I think God is maybe wanting to challenge the pace at which we live our lives: immense beauty pondered, then becoming a trace in the memory banks  of a phone. There is merit in standing and staring, and allowing beauty to filter though into the heart. I am not sure there is much space for lingering, thinking, meditating in our culture these days of everything having to be instant. A pause of a few seconds waiting for something to appear on a computer screen can cause an off the scale reaction of frustration! Somewhere in my memory I remember someone saying, “Hurry is of the devil.” Another person present corrected them and said, ‘Today, hurry is the devil.”  It stops us being still, stops us gazing. We take from many experiences only a few drips of the blessing we could have known, because we just rush on.

Ian White once wrote a song containing the line, “A glance may save but the gaze transforms.” I think this is one of my very favourite lines out of any hymn or song, ancient or modern.

Have you got an iPhone camera approach to beauty and to times of blessing? Click!… and move on? Patterns in one sphere can become a more pervasive  habit covering bigger areas of our life than we might have intended. Have you, have I got an iPhone approach to God? Read the bible… click! Nothing carried in the heart through the day. God tells us something encouraging through another person…click!… it has become a past event rather than something that lives and breathes within us.

According to Paul, for sons and daughters of God to change more and more to be like our elder brother Jesus and our  Heavenly Father, we have to behold the beauty of the Lord. This sounds like more than a glance. It sounds to me like a gaze that transforms.

That strange sounding word that is the title of this blog and its explanation may be difficult for some of us to receive because our minds and bodies are so conditioned by a restlessness to move on. Well, at some point you have to ask God to break that bad habit. What good will it do you if you achieve much, gain much, but your soul suffers?  The bible tells us “ Be still.” I am doing a course on Christian Mindfulness at the moment. In the meditation exercises at first it was incredibly difficult for me not to take a look at my phone or emails half way through! Lingering and gazing are so unfashionable today it might seem a very uncomfortable place for some of us. Can we be still and alone in general? Can we be still before God, or is there something that seems very strong urging us to get on with things? Remember, in many though certainly not in all instances, “Hurry is the devil!”

So,”Before you take the photograph…,” is not just for those who have iPhones. Maybe you were going, “Whew, I haven’t got an  iPhone so this blog is not for me!” I hope after reading it you will understand what that half sentence laid on my heart by the God who loves everyone who reads this blog, is really about. After all we probably were made to ask the question by rote when we were at school, “What is this life if full of care we have no time to stand and stare?” Stop clicking and moving on. Learn to be still. Remember “a glance may save but the gaze transforms.”

God bless you, real good!

Kenny

PS – I would commend to you again the Concept of Christian Mindfulness which is relevant in the light of this blog.

Go to

http://www.christianmindfulness.co.uk/

I am finding this so helpful myself.

PPS – 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 had the most wonderfully upbuilding conversation today with someone who used to work as a Hospital Chaplain. She talked about a paradox that is so beautiful and yet so profound it just had to become today’s blog. At one point of the conversation she shared her memories of holding tiny premature babies, often no bigger than the palm of her hand. They were the symbol of weakness and yet at the same time had tremendous power. They drew forth gifts of care, of compassion, of love, of tenderness, drew forth many skills and abilities from others. In a sense they created community, despite seeming so powerless. Actually they were the powerful centre of a coming together of people around them.

Paul, as is well known, speaks of the church as being like the different parts of a human body. There are parts of the body that seem to not merit much noticing or attention, but they are in fact essential.  I spend more time shaving my face than thinking about my liver, though on a daily basis I am aware of my lungs these days! Normally the theme we concentrate on from this imagery is on honouring other people’s giftedness and accepting our own giftedness and limitations. But that is not the only emphasis of the Apostle Paul. He reminds us that there are parts of the body that get no obvious honouring or attention, and how vital they are, and then seems to say this represents people who in a worldly sense would not attract honour or attention who are now in the fellowship of the church. It is those passed over as weak  and valueless to the world that become the very core of a healthy church. They are actually vital for the breakthrough of the presence of the Kingdom of heaven here on the earth.

Honouring people is a concept rightly being brought to the attention of God’s people in these days which is good and Scriptural.  The Christian church should develop a culture of honour. But to be true to Scripture we need to see what that really means. It means honouring the passed over, not those who already receive visible honour in the church. Of course we are to honour those who already receive visible honour too, but the world can do that with its own, at least some of the time. What makes the church the Church  of Jesus Christ is not simply honouring those whose gifts are obvious and are valued, but it means giving prime place and honour,  a special deliberate heart felt honouring to the weak, to those who at first sight might be dismissed as not very important as not having much to offer. A visiting preacher from across the Pond once asked me who were the most important church leaders in Scotland at the moment so he could make contact with them – to advance his sphere of influence obviously. I told him there were none in the sense he was meaning.  To have said anything different would have furthered his lack of healthy understanding and to have been complicit in his lack of Christ like thinking. The foundation of the church is not its leadership face but how well the hidden parts are being cared for. But we seem to be in love these days with trying to get  contact between influential people in the church meeting influential people in the business world, meeting influential people in the political world. It sounds like wisdom, but it is the wisdom of the world and not God’s way. Jesus did not get His people, his disciples to set up a meeting between Himself and the Sanhedrin, or between Himself and Pilate. At a time when according to modern church thinking He should have been doing that, to spread His influence,  He simply washed the dirty feet of an insignificant bunch of folk. Poor Jesus, he got it so wrong, according to modern  ideas of how to win friends and influence people. Actually he knew that God’s Kingdom on earth gets built in places of dirt and dust, not in corridors of wealth and power. After all, behind whatever gold or silver or position or fame those we consider are important may possess, they like us all are made of dust. As human beings you and I are just handfuls of dust and dirt that heaven has kissed.

You maybe honour your pastor, your elders, those who work hard in the Lord on your behalf.  Paul tells us that is a right thing to do. But the world can do that remember. What distinguished the early church is that they recognised that in places where there is obvious weakness and poverty, the Kingdom waits to break through. Weakness has power in God, just like those tiny  premature babies had among people. Realising this and living it out is essential to a true  and healthy community of Christ emerging in the midst of any culture to challenge it rather than simply to mimic it with a  slightly cleaner version of going after the same things.

I find it interesting that now being able to do less through ill-health there are certain things I really miss. I miss the preaching and teaching of Ian our Associate minister  and Ollie our youth pastor. They deserve and receive honour. But I am missing too the humour, love and grace of the people in what we grandly have called Cafe Church. Some of them are unemployed, some struggle with addictions, some have had really hard lives. But I realise that I have found grace among them, acceptance, love, compassion. I honour them because in their weakness  and more obvious vulnerability they bring to me the Kingdom of God. For me that gathering of what might be labelled the weak and passed over, is a pace where more often than not I encountered the presence of God in powerful and humorous and unexpectedly gentle and tender and beautiful ways.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is one that is often used to bash those who believe in charismatic gifts. “Look at all the problems they caused in Corinth.” Actually, Paul’s instruction was to get more charismatic still, and learn to prophesy instead of just speaking in uninterpreted tongues! Even those who claim to come under Scripture seem to put themselves over it when it comes to this theme of “charismatic” gifts. So those who use 1st. Corinthians as an anti-charismatic tract are simply misusing it for their own theological prejudices.  Naughty, naughty! I am sure they know they are doing this but can’t admit it. Far more important though is  something we forget is an underlying theme that Paul suggests as he writes to Corinth. It was a church were the poor having experienced being despised in the world, were being despised in the church, not fully honoured. It was time to remember that being a church is heaping honour on those who have been given none in the world.

There is good teaching that comes from across the pond to us and erroneous teaching. Sometimes folk from overseas come and pray in very grand ways that Scotland would be delivered from its poverty spirit. But as they do it seems to me they are praying we would live the American dream rather than a Kingdom of Heaven dream and vision. I sometimes cannot say “Amen” to what they seem to be saying is the right sort of spirit to have . I hope they are not meaning when they say that to go against what Jesus said in the first beatitude: The most accurate translation of that text is “Blessed are those who have the spirit of the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” It is where humanity is at its poorest and weakest that we discover most about the Kingdom. Someone you may be passing over in favour of other more exciting people in the room as it were, may have more to teach you about the Kingdom than that upwardly mobile and successful person. May God deliver us from ever thinking that poverty is a good thing. It causes horrendous problems. But may we never be delivered from the riches discovered where there is the spirit of the poor.

Where are you poor today? Where are you weak? Are you allowing others to bless you there to honour you there? Are you honouring your own weakness of body mind or spirit or are you  seeing these things as enemies to you wellbeing and an unwelcome drain upon your friends or your church? Where you are weak you are strong, where you are poor you are powerful. Honour where you are weak, don’t despise yourself, and see how the Kingdom breaks through in fresh ways. To be healthy the church needs not just your giftedness but your weakness and poverty. Allow weaknesses to show. Allow where you are poor to show. If you and I learn to do that, we will find that the Kingdom is closer than we may think and that we are dearer to God than we can ever understand.

I suppose the church needs your giftedness, but I know it needs your weakness.

God Bless

Kenny

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