The little suitcase

By David McGrew

One day, decades ago, I heard a knock on the door. It came so late it was unexpected but I got up and opened it out of curiosity.

It my astonishment, outside on my shabby and worn front porch, leading into the messy and thrown together living room common to the seventies and 20 year old’s barely making it through life, stood Jesus…seemingly oblivious to where He was or whom He was talking to; except that He seemed enormously happy to be there, with that one little suitcase in His hand.

Not knowing what to say, as He stood smiling, I eventually muttered “Please come in.”

So, with suitcase in hand, He walks on in, looking for all the world like He’s called ahead and is prepared to stay. No one was more surprised than I. Not the least of which, over that one little suitcase. It seemed…out of place.

As we sit and make small talk, He opens the case and says “ I want you to look at this.” It’s a Bible. It’s the only thing in it.

Probably unbeknownst to Him, I think, I’ve just coincidentally had some kind of spiritual experience that for some reason makes this idea unexpectedly attractive. So, I pick it up and for the first time in my life, the words pour off the pages like music notes and sing a harmony to my soul. It was like water to the desert of my heart. That was REALLY unexpected. (I think, I should do this regularly. I might even learn how to play a chord or two someday.)

Well, a day’s visit turns into a week’s stay. I think he’s staying on now cause He Reallllyyy seems to like Jeanne and is way more than passingly kind to our infant daughter. He seems to have made and is making Himself home. I dont know what to think cause His appearance has changed everything and everyone in my life, but I know it’s good. But I don’t know how long this can go on. I’m sure I need to be somewhere else…eventually.

In just a short matter of time though, He’s opened His case and taken out more books. He asks me to look at them and tell him what I think. Well, the bible was so good I say “sure”. Again He’s proven right. They were really good books and we had good talks. You would’ve hardly known He knew more than me but as gentle as He was, that did eventually come clear.

While I was busy reading, He said “I’ve got some other friends in town I’d like you to meet. Can they come over?” Of course I agreed but I couldn’t help notice how he seemed to be taking over. I caught him looking at my wall feature particle board on cinder block bookcase. When he knew he had my attention He said, “You mind throwing this away so I can have some room here?” Well, I wasn’t too particularly attached to any of it- fact is, I wasn’t too particularly attached, though I wasn’t aware of it, to much of anything in those days,so I said again “sure”. His friends came over. We went to their house. He seemed to actually know a lot more people than I had ever imagined.

He never did go home. Or, at least He never took His stuff and left. I don’t honestly know what He did. Every night, I went to bed He was still up. Every rising, He was there as if patiently waiting on me. I’vs no idea what He does when I’m not looking. I’ve often thought in these years, “ I wonder who He thinks I am, cause He’s certainly got to have better friends than me” -but to this day, regardless of when I awake or how I come out of that room, He’s sitting there looking at me with that same wide eyed expression of joy He met me on the porch with those decades ago. I’ve given up on the unreasonable fear that one day He’d see through me and say “Hey! I thought you were someone else. I’m leaving.”

Whew. As I look around me now, I no longer recognise my home- I don’t say house as I’ve had many houses in many different locations since then, I say home intentionally. ( yes, in case you’re wondering, He did follow me from house to house…more than once, he even suggested and encouraged some of those moves. In truth, when I tried to slip off elsewhere assuming He might stay behind, when I got up the next day, He’d followed and found me wherever on the planet I had escaped to. At times He’s been more committed to being my friend than I was His.)

My home now; as I look around, somewhere wall by wall, floor-space foot by foot, paint colour, paintings, pictures, maps, books and cases, furniture- the refrigerator (and what was in it) has all changed. But I don’t know how or when.

Seemingly, one thing at a time as I remember back, He’d look around and say “I need a little more room.” Opening that same little suitcase, He’d say “Do you mind If we take that down so I can hang this in our house?, you don’t have to if you don’t want to of course.”

Sometimes I had to think about it a while. I was always worried about what my friends might say but after a while, His friends became my friends and my friends who didn’t like Him actually stopped liking me and quit coming around.

I don’t know how He got all that stuff out of that one little suitcase. For that matter, I don’t know what He did with all the things we took down from the walls, out of the refrigerator or off of the bookcase. I didn’t do much with any of it after that.

As I sit and look around, my bookcase has become massive and massively filled with all sorts of books I had never known to have been printed. These days, He and I read a lot. We sit with a book, of some kind, on one of our laps and one reads aloud to the other. He makes comments, I ask questions. Well, sometimes I make comments but He usually just gets another book out to read an excerpt from.

I can’t really explain how I got here. I’m not even sure of where I’m at. I just know I like it a lot.

Looking back, I can’t imagine what my life would’ve been had I not invited Him and His little suitcase into that little house that was still learning to become a home. I can’t imagine ( beyond where all that stuff came from!) what would’ve become of me, and my home, had I said ‘No- you’re taking over. Can you just put that back. I like my own stuff.’

What I especially marvel at is how He knew just what and when to ask me to replace. The extraordinary patience He exercised to wait and see for myself that I really did like His things better.

And all out of that little, and rather worn, suitcase.

BECOMING

WHO ONE BECOMES OVER A LIFETIME IS EVERYTHING:

There are stages of ministry development that transpire so slowly as to almost defy notice.

One starts in Christian service as a ‘doer’- usually to meet another’s needs or perhaps doing another man’s deeds.

…maybe picking up where another left off.

Over time and usage, he becomes the personification of those doings. He may become quite good at it, ever growing into higher expressions of those functions and roles.

If he persists, and doesn’t allow himself through distraction and weakness to be drawn into a lesser self, he finds through his life, his own vision of Christ. And, if allowing himself to be broken and reshaped into that image, he finds he may then become more than the sum of his doings. New levels of life’s meanings begin to dawn. But let the reader be careful here, a vision of Christ that doesn’t bend and break oneself, is no Christ at all.

Through the bending and the breaking, the healing of life and being begin to glow with the caste of Christ’s reflection. His value is becoming more than what he did, does, or could ever do.

His ‘being’; excelling and exceeding any merit of his doings, impacts and flavours the world (or at least his allotment) beyond his reach or his time in it.

This one, looking behind himself at his family, understands he’s planted Kingdom seeds, for eternity’s sake, that will grow, in their own due time into a full harvest of righteousness.

They will grow into a full harvest of righteousness that he, they and others yet unborn will feed from in lives yet untold.

Faithful

Reading and praying alongside the church at Smyrna in Revelation chapter two, I notice the exhortation begins with Jesus’ testimony of dying and coming again to life.

His core teaching and exhortation here is for the Smyrnan’s to ‘remain faithful up to the point of death itself’.

One can’t actually be, much less remain, faithFUL unless he was full of faith to start with. Faithfulness is costly. It may pay out in tedious and repetitious mundane service or the bill due.  Under extreme circumstances it may suck faith out of your heart like a motorhome speeding up a mountain slope going through fuel.  Either way, and at all points in-between, the test of faithfulness requires the faith reserves to continually be topped up.

In this extreme test, notice with me, Jesus promises them the same reward he announced in his opening statement.  His own reward. There is life, new and different; resurrection life- after the test.

When we endure hard things unto a death, whether we caused the test or not, in faithFULness to Christ, the price tag on those reserves required to take us to the top is a faith in the resurrection itself. Here, he promised the Smyrnan’s that the ‘second death’ mentioned in chapter twenty would not hurt them. I put this to you that even in this life there are a lot of ‘second deaths’.  A test once passed, is never to be repeated -at least as long as the TESTimony is adhered to.

It strengthens me to know that my faithful suffering for His witness here and now has a reward.  It has ability and promise to prevent future testings and judgments, even into the heavenly realms.

When life crowds in and you don’t think you can climb another step, remember there’s a change coming. The test means something more than you can see in front of or behind you. There is a reward. Momentum will change. Soon you will find yourself on the reverse slope, new in vitality and vision with a whole new world in front of you, and the best thing is knowing you’ve moved greatly forward on this great God journey we call life.

There is a resurrection. I hope and believe it’s very flavour and aroma creeps into every room of your life and lingers there forever.

A canvas ~

I’ve been drawn lately to the idea, seen through Paul’s relationship with the Philippian church, that the people in our lives who are our intimates are best seen as an extension of God’s relationship, through those souls, to us. Paul said in chapter one and again in chapter four that he ‘thanked God for’ something the Philippians had done on his behalf. As beautiful as that is, I was really taken when he said in 4:19 ‘ But MY God shall supply all YOUR…’. With that statement, Paul acknowledged that his own relationship with God was also God’s relationship extended into the Philippians lives. Something was added by Paul the Philippians would not get in any other way. Something was added to Paul that he wouldn’t get exactly, in any other way.

So, if the people in our lives (most of them, anyway) are that divine bridge, what’s His point? By that I also mean, what’s God’s point in bringing certain kinds of people, repeatedly, into our lives? Would it be possible for us to look around, seeing those in our lives-especially the troublesome-and get an idea of what the Lord was trying to draw, or correct, or redraw on our own soul?

I don’t say heart here as I’m not thinking of motives or affections. I’m thinking of personality and identity. I’m thinking of God always working me (us) toward being a better, which means different and more whole person.

I think most of us look around at our world, considering some around us liabilities and others assets. Some bring good, some bring …not so good. Maybe we need a mind change that sees the life and people around us as the brush and paints the Lord uses to make us a masterpiece. And like any masterpiece, it’s drawn, corrected, redrawn until it’s absolutely refined into the Master’s vision.

Perhaps then the question we need to ask ourselves isn’t ‘what can I do to change this person, or this circumstance?’ Maybe we should ask ‘who does the Lord expect me to be in this moment? Perhaps asking what truth do I need to wrestle with prayerfully that would make me, and that individual both, more perfectly Christlike.

Perhaps I, as the canvas being painted, should stop fighting the colours application and allow Him to make me as He wishes.

God is always good

Christianity’s great strength, great witness on this earth, is not that believers escape life’s pain and toil but rather that through those things, we hold onto the joyful hope of a better world. A better City. A city in which our elder brother is king and wherein all will be made right.

Our witness is that God is sovereign- unconditionally- which is the qualification of sovereign and as Sovereign, He is good.

Paul said in Philippians chapter four, after being initiated into each and every condition of life- of not having enough and at other times more than enough- that he “ could do all things through Christ which strengthened him.” He didn’t mean he could conjure up capacity and do whatever he could imagine. He meant he could face his chaotic situation with equanimity of spirit and remain connected in active faith with God.

In other words, Paul wasn’t going to judge God’s performance by Paul’s own circumstances. (Earlier in the chapter he’d said “ I’ve learnt how to be independent in the circumstances IN WHICH I AM PLACED.” Presumably he was placed there by God, for the purpose of showing God’s Glory by his persistence of faith.)

If we as ministers believe our primary role is to make people’s lifestyles better through faith (I did think this early on in my career. It was the limit of my vision and understanding) then when their life is being initiated into one of the difficult portions of ‘EVERY condition’ then we will all think our faith has failed. They will think spirituality has no earthly purpose or good.

As leaders, leading by example, let’s live a transparent faith where our friends and loved ones see us facing life with strength and hope. For our own souls, let’s live a life not measuring God by our momentary circumstances and what we may feel he owes us in them.

Oneness

When I say Oneness, as in the Lord our God is One; I mean that intertwining of thoughts that comes through words…sharing minds and ideas… until separate entities(people)come into a state of agreement, encouraged and upheld by love…causing mysteries (at the highest level; of Christ) to be mutually …and reciprocally revealed.

My Oneness with the Lord, who is One, determines the health and extent of my Oneness with Jeanne- whether I’m aware of it or not- and my Oneness with Jeanne sets my Oneness with family and eventually everyone else.

If my Oneness with Jeanne isn’t healthy or complete, then my moral and spiritual authority to govern, lead, impact or in general be in health and prosper in my doings in this life, is to greater or lesser extent, hindered.

The trouble with Oneness though is that it isn’t an automatic intertwining of lives. It’s an intentional weaving of awkward and uncomfortable vulnerabilities, requiring reciprocal…relational…good will. It’s expensive. And it requires constant feeding.

When the work of One gets hard though, it’s evil, and more easily purchased twin of ‘quiet familiarity’ happily steps into the picture. We grow so accustomed to the lesser version that we forget he’s not the real thing. We easily fall into the presumption that Oneness isn’t anything more than just getting along. We settle for less to keep the peace, all the while missing the shalom.

Beyond the irony that Oneness itself often begins with disparity, there’s the point to be made that without Oneness there can be no sustained manifestation of God.

Today; day by day, let the One who lives on the inside of you work himself into every life giving relationship you have. Let Him, in His gentle persistence, knit you together wholly into Holiness, for His name’s sake.

Prophecy

“and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets.”

1 Corinthians 14:32

Here’s the thing, now that covid is over ( even if it’s just a break in the clouds of war ) it might be a good time for a church culture debrief on how we broadly absorbed and handled the prophetic leadings over the last two years.

The above verse positively swells with truth. The prophet can’t claim he can’t stop talking, under the guise that the Spirit is speaking, is the start. The inherent idea here is that my spirit is subject to me. A solid truth to keep in mind.

The thought goes deeper though. In it’s fuller context it suggests that the prophets, all sitting and listening, have the right and obligation to call a halt to the speaker and either add or refine what’s so far been said.

This makes sense, as we all know in part and prophesy in part. Paul said in another place ‘we see through a glass darkly’ so the idea that one prophetic voice is always sufficient to suss the mind of God is probably not as biblical of a New Testament model as we think.

The idea of a strong prophetic voice, declaring hidden mysteries ( even if they’re of a mundane nature) is certainly biblical. But it’s Old Testament, and that’s the rub.

In the Old Testament the prophet, priest and king pretty much held the franchise on who might be consistently, repeatedly, Spirit filled. That’s not the New Testament model though. As believers, we are all born of and potentially always filled with the same Holy Spirit that animated those great souls that we love to read. This is why, ministry gifts for growth not withstanding, we do not need any man to teach us. The Spirit of Truth living in us bears witness with our spirit…on everything that is a question in our peculiar world.

To allow ourselves to be lead by another’s voice, which we can’t test, into a truth that we haven’t first handled for ourselves is both folly and unbiblical. Beyond that- it positively abdicates the Spirit’s role in our walk to another human being’s understanding and expression of the will of the Lord. This defeats God’s intention for our spiritual endowment.

Of course I’m not saying we shouldn’t listen to other voices. We all need each other and we all need each other’s understanding of who Christ is to them. I’m simply saying one can’t relinquish his own relationship with the Lord and live off of someone else’s revelation- the question is bigger than whether they’re right or wrong. It’s a question of personal responsibility and integrity.

A clever soul might ask how that came to be but that’s THE story for another day. And it’s the story that needs telling the most.

Without ceasing

1 Thessalonians 5:17

Pray without ceasing….as in, don’t stop praying.

This requires one to firstly believe in prayer- not every Christian believes God hears and responds. They almost certainly believe He can but that’s not the same thing.

Secondly, it requires a soul to believe in His own prayers. That’s where it really gets skinny.

Believing in prayer often goes hand in hand with spiritual sensitivity ( it should) but there are plenty of spiritually sensitive souls who do not believe in the power, the necessity, the potential or the viability of their own spiritual longings.

The constancy of one’s prayer life, is likely the most significant indicator of an individual’s spiritual growth and health.

Should the Lord return in our own unique cycles of life, may He find prayer ‘on the earth’, in us as we hold forth the word of His hope, in constant contact with Him, spirit to Spirit.

“…and the two shall become one flesh…”

Without understanding Jesus’ quote of Moses from Genesis two, most are content to strive for the lesser goal of happiness in marriage. By nature, happiness is actually transitory and seasonal. It fluctuates.

You can’t always be happy and continue to grow as a soul.

A life time of growing into One with God and our spouse is the stated goal. As it turns out though, growing into and sustaining Oneness is actually hard and at times expensive, demanding work. Thank God, it is more than worth the effort as it substitutes deep fulfillment, along with it’s joy, for ‘happy’s’ temporary kiss.

Oneness is the fruit of shared minds flowing from shared, corrected- qualified, restated - thought through- again, apologized for and explained one more time, words. Hungering and living life with God through His Word is the primary example of this truth found in Genesis chapter two. Life, had and has, a purpose and it’s inseparable from His commission to go into all the earth and take dominion, subdue, replenish and multiply.

It’s actually a superhuman task that no soul can accomplish on their own. This is why God Himself joins the marriage with a portion of His Spirit.

A marriage, therefore a family, isn’t just two people making it through life as happily as possible- there just isn’t enough money printed for that. Instead it’s the joy of finding love even in your most unlovely faults, sins and mistakes and knowing the freedom to rise up with God’s help and the help of your other identity and try again. That takes a lot of good will. That takes a lot of love.

THIS… is why it’s absolutely essential that marriage be recognised as God’s property. It’s His first form of government, biblically expressed. We get to use it, live it, receive it’s benefits - but it does not exist from our own idea or concept.

This is why we can’t change it’s definition, any more so than we can change a Van Gogh painting or re-write the United States Constitution - we didn’t create it. Marriage is not and never shall be our intellectual property. All that can be received from efforts to reinvent it after our fashions is toil, without benefit, and grief.

I wrote above that Oneness was humanly impossible to achieve and sustain. It is, and that’s why we must be ever more resolved to let the ever present One who created it, lead it through life, heal it’s wounds, expand it’s strength and use it to make known His goodness into all of our worlds. Thank God, He does this even when we sleep:)

I know you will all feel this way about your own mates, as you should- but I would be remiss if I did not take this moment to thank my Jeanne ( the best thing that God ever did for me ) for her strength, courage of conviction, her resilient heart and her full and gracious love towards me; a sinner, for being the agent God used in my life to move me farther down the path, bringing me from faith to faith and glory to glory.

participation

Why giving is important-

We’re all familiar with the thought in Philippians chapter four of the Lord meeting our needs through our generosity, but chapter one has some powerful, if more obscure, points to share regarding the importance of giving.

In chapter one, verse three’s two main, yet different, translated views, we find our starting spot. The first line of translation is that Paul mentions the Philippians in his prayers when he remembers them. The second view is that he remembers them because they have contributed from the first day until now and then mentions them in prayer.

Since verse five clearly points out they have made consistent contributions, the point is essentially the same conclusion: consistent giving shows an ongoing spiritual connection. It’s given to man, but it’s received in heaven.

The first clause of verse six picks up here : “OF THIS I am confident…”. Paul’s mention of their consistent giving and his personal confidence in their future spiritual growth, seems connected right there.

My favourite prayer bible draws out three thoughts here in stating Paul’s experience with their giving satisfies Paul that God initiated the good work and will continue to carry it on, right up until the end- the day of Christ.

The following prayer in chapter one is a prayer for increasing and pervading love. The thought of love giving, isn’t a new thought though.

What might be, is the thought that the ceasing of consistent, dutiful, charity might actively hinder love and growth.

Full disclosure: I spend most of my faith on my friends and loved ones- even the body in general- coming up to the measure of scripture’s mark for a believer. In this case that all would grow in love, knowledge and discernment.

While it’s a given in this passage, that need-meeting money is the main thought. We all know that there are many ways to contribute to the gospel. Participation in the work, sharing life, helping in any way is also a contribution. Therefore, withdrawal from participation is a withdrawal of contribution to the gospel.

Active physical engagement matters spiritually. We must watch ourselves and we must watch those committed to us by the Father and do all within our power to continue in all of our contributions.

Sublime

Here’s a bible picture of ‘sublime’:

The Creator God, who calls things nonexistent as if they already were, and raises them from the dead when necessary; by His call to Abram, sublimated a human being, from the inside out, into Abraham.

First, God said it. Then Abram- in order to obey- had to begin to call himself Abraham ( that had to be awkward) and then everyone around, while looking at the contradiction, had to begin to use the name in order to get his attention or represent him. Through the process of time, all around were impacted.

Ten years of humiliation had to follow that first empty sound. In fact, miracle aside, Abraham and Sarah ( another required name change ) neither ever saw the full promise, except from afar. But see it they did.

I wonder, in my life and yours, what name ( identity ) changes were forced by the faith of God, into the fibre of our beings. Maybe you’re awkward calling yourself what God called you. Maybe you have a baby bump of truth you’re trying to hide by staying in the tent, away from others who wont understand why you made the choice to have that child.

Maybe even a little toddler of truth holds your hand and walks through life with you. Whatever stage your at, hold tightly to what He’s said about you. Hold tightly by saying what He said. Hold tightly by living it in front of others that they may hear and see where your truth is going.

Whatever of His voice might now resound in your heart, of His call and purpose for your life, before you stop reading this, once, aloud, to yourself- look up and say it…now.

ProXimity

Why do you suppose, when in John thirteen, Jesus says ‘one of you will betray me’ that He didn’t just tell them who it was?

They begin to look around in wonder but again, ‘no one dared ask’. Oh the great ways of the Lord!-Peter wont ask, but he’s smart and strong enough to know someone, who wasn’t going to ask on his own, could. We all need people to recognise that we’re positioned relationally and physically to do more than we may have the confidence to do. Peter did this here, not necessarily for John’s sake but for all of their benefit as well as satisfying his own fearful curiosity. And Jesus allowed it-that’s key.

Jealous as it may make us to consider, there are those still today enjoying a reciprocal love beyond ‘the ordinary’ with the Lord.

I’m not sure which is the stronger point here but this shows intimacy gives proximity and proximity in turn, grants intimacy.

It’s remarkable that Jesus answered John but not the group. It’s important to see that He gave a sideways answer; a way to know the truth without removing one’s responsibility to perceive and believe. And, He did all of this without removing each individual actor from his own choices and role to live out. ( whatever they may’ve heard, verses twenty-eight and twenty-nine make it clear they hadn’t grasped all that was being said.)

Whether we understand in the moment all that our intimacy in the Lord gains for us, we can rest assured those revelations there received have the power to keep us in the uncertain days ahead.

We often think of young John bringing older Peter into the trial. We marvel that Peter broke and denied the Lord but that John evidently didn’t. What makes, what by all accounts was a nineteen year old boy wiser and stronger than a man likely ten years his elder ?

All things considered, Peter should’ve been the one to stand. He was older, stronger and more experienced. Perhaps it was the proximity which John had with the Lord that kept him through this confusion and painfully later on, propelling him into an empty tomb.

Perhaps the closeness of having the answer breathed upon him personally was just enough to cause John to understand that Jesus was not taken unaware; that he knew the coming events all along and was indeed guiding all of the moving parts towards heaven’s conclusion.

At any rate the larger points remain. Intimacy and proximity go hand in hand and affords us grace and wisdom to stand, to keep others and when the moment comes, to give leadership in our shared race.

prayers that avail much

Psalm thirty-three holds the makings of a good and faithful prayer for the Russian-Ukrainian war. It seems to contain, within itself, a world view built off a solid theology -so bear with me a few minutes here. It may take more than a few keystrokes.

Verse eight is an easy starting spot. The fear of the Lord, here and in verse fourteen, form both the foundation and the ambitions for my prayer. We’re going to pray here for the nation inside the nation, those in the kingdom, those destined to be in the kingdom and those useful to the Lord for His future purposes. With that in mind; verse eight:

“Let all the earth, Russia and Ukraine included, fear you.

May all there stand in awe.

For you commanded the earth and it stood forth and stood fast. The earth and all of its nations exist for you.

You nullify the counsel of nations, their governments and peoples. You frustrate their plans because your counsel stands forever. Your plans carry on from generation to generation. May your purpose be established.

Blessed is that nation ( I know this means Israel here but let’s take some prophetic licence) whose God is the Lord. Especially those within those two territories who name the name of the Lord as their sovereign allegiance. Those people are your inheritance.

You look out from Heaven and see all the sons and daughters of men. You, who fashions the hearts of them all. You understand all of their works. May their lives be saved for your purpose.

Presidents are not saved by their armies. Individual warriors are not delivered by their skill or strength. Equipment and weaponry are a false hope for victory. They do not deliver by their power.

Look, the eye of the Lord is on all who fear Him, on those in that conflict who wait on His covenant mercy.

They wait upon Him to deliver their soul from death, to keep them alive in the famine and deprivation war causes.

May those souls look for and wait upon you Lord.

You are their help-in all they have need of. You are their shield of protection against all weapons and attacks.

With, and for those of your purpose involved on both sides, our heart rejoices in you because we trust in your holy name to save them all.

Let your loving kindness; your covenant mercy, be upon them Lord as we- and they - hope in you.

May your kingdom come, may your will be done, in those people and in those nations of the earth.

five Fold Ministry

Everybody wants to be an apostle, nobody wants to float around In the dark, deep for three days and nights with no help in sight.

Everybody wants to be a prophet but nobody wants to be rejected and defamed for their words when they go against the trend of popular truth.

Everyone would like to be an evangelist, laying hands on the sick with mighty miracles proving the power of God, but hardly anyone wants to put their hands into filth and disease.

A lot of people want to teach, hardly a soul wants to suffer the pains of life in order to have God’s truth confirmed into their souls depths as wisdom and not just mere knowledge.

And we all want to pastor, just not these broken hearted people refusing to be healed all the while blaming God and us for their condition.

Be renewed

…and be renewed in the spirit of your mind,

Ephesians 4:23

It’s hard for me to fathom, how I managed to miss for over forty years, that I can’t actually renew my own mind. Hmmm, evidently what you’re taught as a young believer does matter. Especially if one ( me) happens to think he’s grasped the full thought. Tying the verb ‘be’ above with the word ‘spirit’ gives a strong clue that this is a spiritual exercise.

Certainly we have to position ourselves for the Spirit to renew our minds but it’s good to be reminded he’s the One doing the work and causing the effect.

It’s a delicate and sometimes a slow process. It’s a challenge to renew the mind, without wounding the human and always broken spirit that drives it. It’s hard for us all, at times, to embrace ‘what’s right’ without feeling very wrong(ed).

It’s my right now prayer, that the Spirit of life within you is able to bubble up into the extremities of your soul, and so radicalise all of your, and our thinkings and feelings, that a time of having never held the thoughts of God, is a distant and vague memory for each of us.

Spent

I think one of the greatest deficits today, as in paralleling the National debt, ‘greatest’ deficits, is a deficit of spiritual strength. This is a deficit in the born again, spirit filled church and to my mind is much more dangerous than the fiscal, national debt so many believers grieve over.

Reading Ephesians chapter three, the thought flits across my frontal lobe ‘why would someone who is already born again need to be strengthened by the already indwelling Spirit?’ Quick as lightening, from the other region, soul answers back ‘because it’s spent.’

That reminded me of a few scriptures. Isaiah chapter forty-nine records the suffering servant as saying ‘he’d spent his strength for nothing.

Psalm eight four says the righteous go from ‘strength to strength’. Jesus told one of His seven churches ‘you have but a little strength’ and then later on says ‘hold on to what you have’.

Paul teaches us in one of his epistles to the Corinthians that because of pressure, despairing of life itself, that his own insufficiency was overshadowed by Christs strength, making Paul strong again through the Lord.

I’m reminded once again of the need to pray in the spirit, past mine and other’s problems, beyond my past, out of today and into the future. It’s my own prayers in the spirit that cause me to be built up in my faith, and being built up and strong in my faith is the only possible way I can ensure I will not ever be over-spent into spiritual bankruptcy.

Voices

Listening to a teacher recently I realised some people simply have the Voice and the knowledge to use it in a way that compels following. Voices, like all human expressions, have an inner ability to be attractive. Just because some part of a person is attractive doesn’t imply YOU should BE attracted, or overly attracted, to it.

There’s something to be said for knowing the voices you’re supposed to hear, so then by extension, the ones you aren’t. There are a lot of voices in the world and they are all significant. Voices, it seems, are much more than information delivery systems. They are carriers of thought and identity- the speaker’s soul if you will.

Listening for information is an important level of impact. Listening to be transformed requires another level of commitment. Much is gained or lost by who’s soul we allow into ours, through this awesome yet everyday function of speech. The speakers identity pours into you through his truths and with his truths we find ourselves taking on patterns of thought, mannerisms and the speakers pithy sayings.

Personally, as it turns, many a good man has tried in good conscience to put his life into mine through his words but instead simply irritated, frustrated or confused me. ( I’m so glad youre not like that!). At one point in my studies I thought I was just a bad hearer, and while I certainly can be that, I’ve since realised that often a speakers truth wasn’t intended to be my identity. There is a higher purpose in whom I listen too than my gratification.

I’ve come to understand that the hearer’s identity in Christ is what must be spoken to. It does me no long term good to listen to another soul making disciples if the speaker is not answering to the pattern of identity I carry in my own heart. We have to have the freedom and take responsibility to judge that.

Once again, rambling thoughts but I will leave you with this. Are the people you’re feeding off of the model of soul you are required to become? Either way, may the Lord Jesus direct those voices as primary sources into your life.

Psalms

A thought on the book of Psalms:

Every book in the Bible has it’s own spirit; it’s own flavour. The author- or in this case, the authors and compilers- moved by the Holy Spirit, assembled this book as a reflection of God’s saving faithfulness to David and to Israel. In doing so, God made it a book for all times and all peoples.

No one book of the Bible shows a complete picture of God as all are written in context of time, circumstance and place. Psalms however may come closest to showing divine acceptance and steadfast love to the sin broken condition of any willing soul determined to move towards the Lord. Psalm’s use by the Lord and in the New Testament shows it’s great healing value of the soul.

In the long view, Psalms uses both David and Israel as intercessory forerunners for the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Lord Jesus and the completed Body of Christ as a nation. By doing so, it shows you and I that it’s safe to trust God and how to walk forward in humility and faith.

Comfort of the Scriptures

As I read through psalms, I’m struck by how many times over my life, a seemingly small, personal phrase expressed a depth of personal -usually painful- sentiment I was struggling with.

It seemed the phrase or word would lightly, quickly touch my mind and heart with a sense of ‘hey- I know exactly how that feels.’ I’d note it and move on.

Sometimes, even years later, I’d come back and see the note or the phrase, that I couldn’t have even remembered, much less quoted and realise that had been the end of my troubling or fearful thought. That it had been the end of the troubler himself actually stirring my life up.

Psalms certainly isn’t the only book the Lord has spoken to me about my life from but I do think- with quite a bit of surprise- it must be the one He’s used the most to speak about my own, David McGrew, personal weaknesses, fears and brokennesses.

Somehow, the depth of emotion and pain it’s written in, mixed with a simple and enduring faith seems a cure for many ills.

Has God Really Said?

‘Has god truly said’ is the foundational question to be tested in our life. This testing is designed to destroy our allegiance to God and transfer our trust to another and thereby move us into a different kingdom.

A kingdom where reason rules instead of faith. A realm where perception displaces truth.

The question comes in many non-verbal forms too. The greatest of these may be ‘if God had actually said (if God truly loved me, if God was really there) then my life’s circumstances would not appear this way.’

Every life will be tested, and each will be tested in it’s own unique way, designed to take maximum advantage of the tested one’s own weaknesses and fears. There is no corporate, church wide, the whole class passes, way around this.

Do know this though. The God who came looking for Adam in the cool of the day is always and fully present. He has said I will never leave you nor forsake you. He has said that with every temptation, He makes a way of escape that you may bear it.

It’s my sincere hope and prayer, that regardless of your life’s current situation, you find it within yourself- within your walk with him and others, to not judge Him who keeps your soul after your own pain, fears or experiences.

We’re told Jesus kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. We’re exhorted in the same general passage to entrust our own souls, our own personalities, our unique identities, to a faithful creator.

He is not a man, He will not lie. His words will not fall to the ground. He can be trusted.