Tag Archives: God’s love

The two sides of the coinage of the Kingdom of heaven: Emptiness and Fullness

I have been thinking more about the whole idea of trying to hold before God a blank page or keeping open a place of silence so that by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as those we read of in 1st. Corinthians Chapters 12 – 14, we might be enabled to hear something God wants us to hear, see something God wants us to see, speak something God wants us to speak or do something God wants us to do in order that another person may know that God is close to them and in the midst of His people, and at work through the gospel of Jesus proclaimed in Word and Deed.  (Whew: a long sentence: Considered seriously bad form, I know, like using the wrong case when you text!!)  Of course there are other lists of gifts in the bible other than the list now being referred to, none of which are exhaustive in my opinion, but for some reason it is the gifts mentioned in 1st. Corinthians, manifested in the ministry of Jesus  and entrusted to the church for her strengthening and mission, that are rarely talked about in many churches within Scotland; sadly they are sometimes not wanted or even believed in as being authentic manifestations of the Spirit for our day. 

The gifts of the Spirit are of course often counterfeited, whatever list of gifts you draw from in the New Testament. There can be genuine speaking in tongues and prophesy or counterfeit versions of the same. There can be genuine teaching , or counterfeit and false; there can be a genuine gift of leadership or its counterfeit,  namely a demonic spirit of control.  Because of fear of false fire against which plentiful and fear-filled or angry warning is given instead of the biblical injunction to simple awareness and alertness, some of God’s people have been unwisely corralled and herded  into a place of settling for no warming from the gifts of the Spirit at all, other than perhaps the gifts of teaching or pastoral care. Silence in these matters  has meant that for many years in Scotland, many Christians in many settings and denominations desiring to honour the command to earnestly desire the gifts of the Spirit, were not sure how to move from earnestly desiring to receiving and using/being used in these gifts. In that regard the situation is better than it was back in the late 70’s and 80’s. There has been a lot of good teaching available to local churches to  help God’s people into a place of moving in the reality of the gifts of the Spirit. Anyway, this is not a history lesson so I don’t want to expand on that last sentence at all, but stick to the point. (Steroids make me want to make a hundred points at once!)

For the last few blogs I have been trying to help those who may find themselves in the situation of wanting to be used in the gifts of the Spirit but who are perhaps in a church setting where they are getting no help in that matter and are even meteing discouragement. How do we receive the good gifts of God’s Spirit, the Spirit who is in Himself the gift of the Father promised to us by, in and through Jesus? Take  time to read to read these words of Jesus from Luke Chapter 11:

5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

There is so much to learn from these words that is relevant as we think about how to open ourselves more and more to the Gift and the gifts of God’s Spirit, abilities, “gracelets,” “spirituals,” that are received from and understood by the Spirit in our spirit (which is of course not the same as our mind or the ways in which our mind learns).

The Motivation:  I want to know the reality of the Spirit and His gifts and power for this purpose: There is someone who I am speaking with, sitting with, someone I know, someone I am praying with or for,  who is wearied from their journey in life and out of friendly compassionate love, I want to help them.

The Realisation: My cupboards are empty! I feel that the help this person needs is beyond my abilities to help, despite the love I bear toward them.

The Solution: I will go to my friend whose cupboards are always full, on behalf of this empty one who needs help. I will stand in my emptiness at the door, asking, seeking and knocking.

The Conclusion: The story that began in emptiness and powerlessness ends in fullness. The help receive is ministered and passed on. What was freely received has been freely given.

The whole drift f the story, is that at the start we read of two empty people, at the end we read of two full people. The catalyst is the willingness to move in emptiness on behalf of another’s emptiness  to the one whose hose is full of that which can bring the much needed help.

I am not sure I know much more than this  when it comes to how we make ourselves open to receding and ministering in the Spirit’s power and gifts than this: we go to God and say with the urgency of friendly and caring and non-judging love toward the needy “A friend of mine has arrived, wearied from a journey. I have nothing to set before them. Help me so I can help them!” As we do so in contrast to a reluctant and grumpy neighbour, the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ opens the door of access to His Kingdom of Heaven cupboards and says, “Take whatever you need to help them, to help the weary ones! Take my seeing, my knowing, my wisdom, my power, my speaking, my eternal love and go to that weary one again. I offer it all to you!” The best place to begin to minister from, the best place to begin to experience the operation of the gifts of the Spirit is  in a fresh awareness of our emptiness and powerlessness in which reality  the love of God refuses to go unheard and unnoticed, refuses to be silent or inactive,  but drives us to the riches we know are God’s to give.

In short, emptiness mixed with the propulsive power of God’s love for a needy world is where we begin in this journey of earnestly desiring  the Holy Spirit in His diverse ministries that all bring glory to Jesus as the Eternal Son of God  and the only Saviour of the World

So here is the preparation: Be scrupulously honest; don’t pretend. Have I reached the place of emptiness, genuinely so, in terms of realising that without the Spirit of God,  I will experience the truth of what Jesus said, “Without me you can do nothing”? Is the love of God a constraining pressure upon me that is driving me heavenward in a paradoxical mix of desperation and faith to ask, seek and knock? We cannot pretend to be there. We are or are we not….

The journey towards being more full, begins at the place of being more empty.

God bless you as you obey the command to earnestly desire the gifts of the Spirit because you are obediently seeking to pursue love. God bless you as you ask, seek and knock at the door of your Father in heaven who loves to be generous in the measure of His giving to His children so that they may be blessed and bless others.

Kenny

Have heard some sad news…

What is on my mind? Feeling a bit sad to find people writing to me after a recent blog to say they have been told by their pastors that their depression is a sin. If you have been told that, please know it is rubbish. Not only that, it is cruel rubbish. If that is the persistent teaching on the matter, you should probably not try and dignify such madness with a conversation. You would probably be better off in a church where the leadership understands human fragility. Pastors don’t always like it when people move church. Sometimes it is the right thing to move even if the pastor throws a fit and puts pressure on you to stay…though if you are in perpetual motion that is a different matter! Settle somewhere, where the fellowship is supportive and you find good spiritual bread on offer that strengthens you, even strenghtens you to offer yourself to bless others in your brokenness.
Jesus still remembers a time when he was so sorrowful he felt he could die on the spot. I hope you hear the tone of his voice and heart speaking to you somehow this day. Remember too that same heart and voice is praying for you in the same tone. He ever lives to make intercession for you and for me… and even for the folk who have distressed you with their condemning words….
Actually I have come to see that those who have entered into depression are often the bravest of souls. Pstorally I have so often found it is the road from a past to which one cannot return or had to move away to a new place, a new state not yet arrived at emotionally, mentally, spiritually or even physically. However you found yoursef on that road, be it for reasons of chemical imbalance, or chldhood trauma, for reasons of circumstance or for one of many other reasons, may you know the empathy of Jesus. He is now annointed with the oil of joy. He got there! He has faith for you. If your faith has dried up, somehow may the faith of the Son of God ,who loved you and gave himself for you, be yours this day.
God bless
Kenny

The Smell of Fresh Bread….

Well, I feel a bit like those folk who criticised the Edinburgh Trams… but now look quite happy when they are using them. I have never liked “blogging” and was judgemental towards those who blogged. “Do they really think that people are interested in their opinions, especially when their opinions are so obviously wrong…?”

Funny how circumstances alter your values. A preacher for 34 years, I now suffer from a lung condition which at least for the time being sets certain limitations around that activity. Many are praying for me, and I am so thankful for that. I look forward in believing faith to see further answers to these prayers… BUT I CANNOT WAIT FOR THESE ANSWERS TO UNFOLD. In this time of being laid aside from what I most love doing I have seen so much more beauty in Jesus than ever before. In what could have been dark time, I find myself saying again and again with wonder, “Jesus, I am amazed by your light.”

The bible tells us that we do not well if we keep good news to ourselves. I want to write to you with the goodwill of a beggar sharing with another beggar where they have found bread. Sometimes in these days of hatred of absolutes the search is exalted above the finding and the hungering above the bread. I need some way to share  with you bread that I have found ,so I can go to bed in peace.

What finally pushed me into the until now hated realm of blogs and bloggers was seeing someone greatly admired by the Christian world as a bible teacher of international renown giving ludicrous and harmful advice about how a wife should cope biblically with an abusive husband. How is it possible to sound so sound and yet for the fragrance of Jesus to be so missing? Biblical orthodoxy, to which I am committed, without the Spirit of Christ pleases no one but the religious and advances no cause other than enslavement of human beings. When the truth of Christ is prepared to ignore real people with real needs, it simply becomes a Phariseeism or a new teaching of the law which loads burdens on the backs of men and women that are not only hard to carry but crush.

I want to offer you bread fresh from the oven. Sometimes it may be half a slice, sometimes it may be a loaf. My hope is whoever you are you will be able to taste that the Lord is good, and that He is nearer than you think…. and you are dearer to Him than perhaps you have ever realised.

Let me share bread with you….