Passion Gifting and Power

One Day I Will Ask You

A few months ago I had a clear word from Jesus as my first conscious thought of the day, (this kind of thing happens to Christians, it's good to be ready for it and take note or it can just dissolve away like smoke, as a dream does).

Jesus said, very softly: "one day I will ask you, what did you do with all the passion, gifting and power that I gave you?"

Since then this future requirement from Jesus has been weighing on me and I've been looking for "passion", "gifts" and "power", in my Bible and in my life. These qualities are everywhere in the New Testament, under the New Covenant. I realise that most of my time is spent on the things of the world rather than the things of Heaven, so my balance is not yet fully right. 

There is a lovely song: ".. and the things of the world will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace" (Matthew 6:33-34). 

The parable of the sower includes the warning "but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the Word, and it proves unfruitful" (Mark 4:19).

So in the time I have left on this Earth I am trying to lift my game. This kind of desire is a place where Jesus and Holy Spirit together are always ready to help. I've heard so many testimonies where the person earnestly sought after Jesus, and He invariably made Himself available by His Spirit (Jeremiah 29:13, Proverbs 8:17, Matthew 5:6).

Where am I now? I am praying more and have been this whole year. Even as the world seems to be going downhill, Jesus' call to prayer is increasing, not just in me, but in many others I see in meetings and in day-to-day life. This is a common theme amongst God's people; whoever I read, and from whatever century or season in history, there are those who feel to pray more. Even in His own day, Jesus said ".. This is an evil generation .." (Luke 11:29, Ephesians 6:12), these days seem to be no different. Today there are many who are calling evil good and calling good evil (Isaiah 5:21). This is so contrary to God who made everything "very good" (Genesis 1:31), and who loves truth (John 14:6) and light (John 1:4).

Some years ago I bought E. M. Bounds' "Complete Works on Prayer", for my wife, Trish, and now feel called to read it again, (see Note 1). It's a big book, (eight books in one volume), and I'm cherry-picking subjects and chapters. It is a delight. Bounds places great importance on Jesus' words to me: "passion", "gifts", and "power", and many more strong words besides: faith, trust, desire, fervency, character, obedience, humility, devotion, trouble, mission, promises, miracles, providence, sacredness, purpose, unction (anointing), deliberation .. and includes a great many stories of prayer heroes from both the Old and the New Testaments of the Bible. Very encouraging. 

Time and again Bounds reminds us that prayer is God's idea. It is an essential inclusion in His design for humankind and for each of our unique relationships with our Abba Father; our Saviour and Lord, Jesus; and our Counsellor and Comforter, Holy Spirit. Essential!

As I spend time in my Bibles, (Trish and I are blessed to have many different Bible translations, see Note 2), I am every day reminded that part of Jesus plan in rescuing us from the world is that He will ultimately sanctify us: "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). 

This means that He will lead and guide and help us to leave our sin behind .. He will clean us up and develop our ministry in the world "until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature person-hood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes" (Ephesians 4:13-14). 

This is very good news; it means that, more and more, we are able to live lighter, yet with great purpose (2 Timothy 1:9), and live free (Galatians 5:1). Over the past months I have grown in my determination to participate more in Jesus' work, to be more aware, to try harder!

Prayer works. Trish and I both got to know Jesus and who He is through prayer meetings and getting to know born-again Christians on a personal level. God makes prayer possible by equipping us, then He asks us to pray. Trish and I set aside time to pray together and I love to take part in prayer groups. Another application of passion, gifts and power.

Surveys of hospital patients show that those who pray, or are prayed for, show fewer deaths and markedly better and faster recoveries from operations, procedures and treatments than do those who receive no prayer; this was in the same hospitals with the same doctors and nurses and the same operations, procedures and treatments performed for the same symptoms. The only things different were the prayers. Prayer works.

It is no wonder then that 82% of all the people in the world believe that the spiritual world is real and influential, even powerful. That is more than four out of every five people. This number comes from a Pew study, Pew are a very well established and trusted survey company.

Trish and I recently heard a report of a testimony about prayer, (so it was not first hand, nonetheless we found it to be entirely believable). A man was saying that he used to be a Satanist and had lots of fun praying to Satan that people's troubles would increase; he found that these prayers were effective and the people he prayed for got into all sorts of difficulties. 

Later he found that when he made these prayers towards people who were being prayed for by Christians, nothing happened; his prayers fell to the ground. The man said that this took all the fun out of his "game" so he stopped trusting in Satan and became a Christian, and is now very happy with that decision! Prayer works!

Prayer is global in scope and it is also intimate. Our prayers effectively help God to do His will in the world! Testimonies abound, from the smallest things, to lives being saved or radically changed. As a computer programmer and data-base expert I was trained to see patterns; with prayer I find it hard to see any. For every rule or guide-line I could offer, I could also list exceptions. The important thing is to follow Jesus, let Holy Spirit be your guide, your prayer leader, and to listen to His heart and your conscience.

Although I am a house husband for Trish and a helper for all our family, I now see my main work as writing PsalmsOfJohn.com. I love this work because I work so closely with Jesus. He is my Ideas Man, all the concepts and ideas come from Him, He is also my Mentor and helps in a hundred ways as I work, and He is my Editor-in-Chief, nothing is considered to be complete until Jesus has given His approval. This is extraordinarily satisfying and I am ever so thankful. I plan to continue working hard at this as it needs all the passion, gifting and power Jesus gives me.

John the Baptist announced Jesus with the words: "I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Matthew 3:11).

Baptise means "immerse in", Scripture also tells us that we are filled with Holy Spirit. It's not surprising that Jesus expects us to have, and to show, fire. After all, as born-again Christian, we are filled with Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4, 4:13, 9:17, 13:52). Holy Spirit is the power who raised Jesus from the dead. "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you" (Romans 8:11). 

Paul is famous for comparing himself to an athlete; he was ready to press on to win the race and receive the prize (1 Corinthians 9:25, Philippians 3:13-14). This is a great way to look at Christian life. There is a prize and it is very precious; the prize is eternal life with Jesus! It is so very good to press on .. "perseverance" is one of my favourite Bible words ..

"My beloved spoke and said to me, "Arise, my love, my fair one, come away. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me" (Song of Solomon 2:10-13).

And, as we live our Christian life each of us can rejoice that it will not run dry; there is no end to it: "Now there are also many other things which Jesus did. If they should be all recorded one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain (have room for) the books that would be written" (John 21:25).

Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus.

Note 1: Bounds, E. M. 2004. "The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer". Baker Books. Paperback Edition.

Note 2: Bibles - Reading, spending time immersed in, and pondering the content of the Bible is a vital part of Christian life. At Bible college we were taught to ask: "What does the text say?" We were told to consider how the reader at the time would have understood the passage in question. What was the writer of the passage trying to pass on to the people of his time?

I read English translations, they all have differences from one another. We can read a passage in more than one translation and work out what God is saying. Also, at Bible College I learned Greek (from Bible times), which is the original language of the New Testament, I still use my Nestlé Greek/English New Testament. There were no sentences or paragraphs in the original languages so the structures in our translations vary. Ultimately how we read the Bible reflects how we know Jesus, on our own personal relationship with Him and our Father, and what Jesus reveals to us. Jesus is the Word of God and the Bible is simply Jesus written down (John 1:1-4). God is the God who reveals Himself (Amos 4:13, Jeremiah 29:13, Proverbs 8:17, Matthew 5:6).

"Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy" (1 Corinthians 14:1). 

Jesus wants us to hear from Him and be able to share what He says.

King James was King, his word was law. He instructed his translators to tone down the "everyone" (Colossians 3:11) language of the New Testament so that people would continue to respect and honour the authority structures in the land and in the church.

There is much talk of "men" in the King James Version even though, since Jesus' ministry on Earth, God includes everyone; men, women, slaves, free people, citizens, visitors, Jews and others. Many newer translation have continued this masculine focus. (It is also widespread in the church in recent times; E. M. Bounds' book, written in the early 20th Century), is full of "men" and hardly mentions women). 

The idea that "church" is an institution and a social and authority structure is strongly reinforced in the KJV, and in many later English language translations; but the word for "church" is the Greek word, "ecclesia", which means "the gathering of God's people"! Nothing about leadership, or hierarchy structures or buildings. King James supported this distorted view and, sadly, we often still tend to be presented with this error. "Church" is often a "service". In the King James Version Holy Spirit is referred to as the Holy Ghost; I believe this to be a terrible piece of translation because our beloved Holy Spirit is definitely not a ghost, He is not a spirit of a dead person. Yet today pastors and others seem to love using this misleading word!

God never changes (Hebrews 13:8), so we can expect to find the same awesome, loving, powerful, creative and good God everywhere we look. For years my life was tough and I came to think that God had a closed hand towards me, that I wasn't good enough. I let these thoughts affect me in very negative ways. At the time I knew that my thoughts were wrong but still allowed them to affect me. Thankfully I am now past this piece of foolishness. It took a long time for me to correct my own wrong translation and find Bible verses which would help me. A long time to learn, in my heart, "what the text says"! Now I know, Jesus loves me, unconditionally !!

Amen.

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Praise our lovely Lord Jesus.