Do Not Settle

How Are We To Be Church?

During a recent prayer-Zoom our lovely Lord Jesus gave our group further answers to the questions: "What are you saying Lord God?" and "What are you doing Lord?"

Our group were praying about a local house church where discipleship of the "younger" Christians is a priority, and everyone is committed to Jesus and also ready to contribute in ministry and to grow in Christ ..

We had also been discussing and praying about how we are to be church once the Covid-19 pandemic is passed.

Then a voice said: "Do not settle". Immediately we knew that this was Jesus' thought for us all.

The coronavirus lockdown is easing in Western Australia and we are thinking of our lives now returning to "normal". We are also aware that in so many countries things are still very difficult, not just with the illness, but also with the massive unemployment, and economic, social, health and ethical changes the pandemic has brought to our societies.

We cannot begin to know the extent of the changes which are still before us.  People are talking about a "new normal" saying that "things will not be the same", but no one can tell us what the "not" will be like ..

I, and my prayer partners, believe that "church" will change too. So many people are saying how blessed they have been over the past months to share very simply with other Christians, one-at-a-time or with small groups, walking safely-distanced-apart in parks, or talking over the phone, or on the Internet. They have learned to be "church" in a new and deeper way. Their times together have been precious and filled with worship; Jesus was in the midst during the sharing and prayer and as they helped one another.

Here is my note-from-memory from that prayer-Zoom meeting; Jesus said to me:

"I want you to be totally available to me and to be ready to be radically obedient. I want you to love the brothers and sisters I have put you with, to be discipled by them, and you in turn to disciple them. I want you to go about doing the works I set before you. I want you to look beyond one church or group, rather to be a part of a number of groups each with its own focus; that way you will get to know many people and be close enough that you can love them.

Beyond this, I want you to look outwards, to always remember that my focus is the whole world; I desire that the whole world will hear my gospel (Isaiah 52:7) and know that I came to set everyone free from their sin, their rebellion and disobedience,  and that they may look forward to eternal life with me. And that everyone can grow into fullness in me (Ephesians 4:12), that my church will grow in unity (John 17:21), and that none should perish (2 Peter 3:9), but come into the fullness of life in me (Romans 6:23, 1 Corinthians 4:17, 2 Timothy 3:12) and be free (Galatians 5:1)".

Paul reminds us that the Church is Jesus' body, "the fullness of him who fills everything in every way" (Ephesians 1:23) and its members are "Christ's body" (1 Corinthians 12:12). We are those members.

Our primary responsibility as Jesus' people is to put God first always, and to put our neighbour next (Matthew 22:37-40).  By the time I put Jesus, then my Christian brothers and sisters and my family ahead of me, and do what I do to look out for others including strangers (Matthew 22:39), and do any work I'm committed to do, I find myself well down in my priority list for my love and care .. it is very sobering for me to think about this ..

Jesus wants us to gather around Him as our Shepherd; to find places where He is Head, where He is Centre and the object of our worship, where there is the intimacy of a big Brother and His siblings, all looking to our Father for active guidance by our loving and caring Holy Spirit.

One of my prayer friends often refers to "the aroma of Christ" (2 Corinthians 2:15), how lovely it would be to be surrounded by Jesus' aroma!

We know that we are to love one another and even to disciple and help one another as we make room for them to love, disciple and help us (John 13:34-35, Acts 5:42, Romans 12:7, Romans 15:4, 1 Timothy 4:13). Growing in love is a slow processes, so Jesus must mean that we are to call one group or fellowship or congregation "home", but we are also to involve ourselves well beyond that one group.

In Bible times Christians met in one another’s homes and at the Synagogues where the Jews would have been conducting their liturgies, (there were no buildings set up specially for Christian meetings). There is a sense of Jesus' people being "one family"; they were very generous and shared much. They knew one another as brothers and sisters, and together they cared for and nurtured all the children, the old folk and the disadvantaged, and their neighbours too.

When Peter, Paul or Timothy, or any mature teacher (1 Corinthians 2:6-7) came to a city, Jesus' newly formed church would gather in all its variety to hear from them, this would add another and precious dimension to their Christian walk and give opportunity for Jesus' Way to be taught (and doctrinal error to be rectified). The apostles' letters would have been handed around and read aloud much as we use the Internet today, so that good, clear teaching could reach all the "ecclesia", all the "gathered ones".

What Does It Mean? "Do Not Settle"?

Whatever else, Jesus is telling us to not become too settled where we are planted. Scripture makes it clear that we are to form bonds with other Christians. This means to help, form relationship and share with each other, and to "love one another" .. this takes time. But we have been given enough time to do even more .. 

Jesus and Paul often spoke or wrote about these things: Scripture shows everybody ministering, love in action, unity, making room for one another, compassion, mutual growth, humility and service. And most of all, there was a focus on Jesus, and our Father and His Kingdom. Jesus asked Abba Father to send us Holy Spirit so we would be equipped and strengthened to do all this (John 14:26)!

I hear Jesus saying: "find groups of believers where you see lots of wheat and few tares, where the people are more committed to Me and My Kingdom than to the world and its culture".

The name "Christian" was not given to Jesus' people for almost a generation after that amazing Pentecost when Holy Spirit came with tongues of fire and Jesus' church was born (Acts 2). The early believers were mostly Jews and still attended Synagogue. But they also began to follow Jesus' teachings, alongside of their Jewish religious life. They were initially called "the followers of the Way" (Acts 24:14).

This reminds me of Trish's and my early Christian life. We came to Jesus during the Charismatic Renewal in the early 1980s. Although we still went to church in the regular way, we Charismatics also met where and whenever we could. We never thought of our meetings as "services" because we all contributed, even newcomers! We had prayer, worship and teaching meetings, mostly these were small but we communicated with other groups and sometimes gathered in big numbers. We did get to know and love one another, we knew that Jesus was growing all of us, and we all learned to use the spiritual gifts Holy Spirit had blessed us with, and to minister and grow in these, within the body of Christ and in the world. We understood what "freely give" means (Matthew 10:8).  There was much joy and there were many miracles. We knew that we were being fed.

How Well Am I Doing Now?

If Father God is asking us to come into line with His will in a way that is going to help the world, then am I doing so? What am I now doing better or more truly? With whom? When? These are tough questions!

Am I living as though I am "God's temple" (2 Corinthians 6:16) and Jesus and Holy Spirit live and minister from inside me (Colossians 1:27)? Are there "rivers of living water" flowing from my spiritual belly (John 7:38)?

I think a lot about being a "living stone" (1 Peter 2:5) .. how well am I doing this? Am I allowing Jesus to chip away at me and shape me to conform to His will? Am I where He wants me in His "house of God", or do I just go where I like and am comfortable?

Do I bring "salt and light" (Matthew 5:13-16) to people and situations? Am I one who builds "hope and faith" (1 Thessalonians 1:3)? Do I encourage others with true testimonies (John 19:35, 2 Timothy 1:8) of God's "grace" (Romans 5:2), "love" (1 Corinthians 13), "salvation" (Romans 13:11), “compassion” (Philippians 2:1-2), "power" (2 Timothy 1:7) and "kindness" (Acts 4:9)?

I do not have answers to these questions but am grateful to our lovely Jesus for asking them; just thinking about these things helps me to focus more on His will and less on mine, and to encourage me away from my comfortable or lazy habits. Trish and I both think that these times are critical for the world, and require us to re-commit to Jesus and to be sure of our duty to God and to our fellow humanity.

The Father's Heart

Trish and I have six children. We are so grateful that we all live within a few suburbs of one another in the same city. How lovely it is when we all get together with wives and girlfriends and grandchildren too, we often have more than a dozen of us sharing a meal! How saddened Trish and I are when a rift develops between some of the kids, or anything disrupts our harmony. We worry and pray until relational healing comes.

How much worse it must be for our Abba Father God. He loves us so infinitely more than we do our kids, and He has seen such lack of unity in His body for so long, (for all of my life and more). He constantly sees critical judgments, mistrust, isolation, and broken fellowships besides the materialism, pride and seeking-a-name-for-our-self, greed and the abuse that we Christians are so publicly accused of .. How His heart must ache ..

Time and again in Scripture Jesus calls us to unity, it is one of the great themes of the New Testament. In the church today there is often much talk of unity but sadly, not much of it to be seen ..

"Do not settle" has much to say to this state of affairs, as we meet, worship, pray, fellowship and work with others, unity will grow as love grows, then the world will see Jesus.

(John 4:23 NIV) "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks".

(John 4:23 Message)  "But the time is coming - it has in fact already come - when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter. It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship".

Praise Jesus. Amen.

Favourite Bible Verses

"So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,  to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up  until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:11-13).

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,  that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,   I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me" (John 17:20-23). 

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14). 

Amen.

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Praise Jesus. 

Jesus Calls Me – T4

Testimony 4 - (1985)
Jesus Call Me To Himself

We were expecting our third baby when we attended an Anglican charismatic conference in Manjimup (a country town in the Southwest of Western Australia). This was where I finally gave in to Jesus.

The keynote speaker was Father Terry, then the parish priest at St Paul's, Darien, Connecticut in the USA. Terry talked about John Baptist announcing that Jesus would come and baptise His people with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and what this means in the light of the Book of Acts, the Gospels, the New Covenant and the whole Word of God. He was talking about the charismatic element in Christian life and the life of the Church.

By now Trish, my wife, had been an enthusiastic born again Christian for a few years, but I was not. In truth I was "sitting on the fence", with one foot either side. Really I just went along, I enjoyed the singing and fellowship. We were familiar with "life in the Spirit" that was why we were at this conference.

Terry's teaching was very compelling, it had a certain academic and scriptural rigour, I saw things more clearly than I had previously. On the Saturday night, as we drove to our friend's house where we were staying, I told Trish that for my birthday I wanted one of the new NIV Bibles. She immediately asked "so you are ready to give your heart to Jesus then?" "No", I replied, "not yet", I knew that I would have to bow my knee to Jesus when I became Christian, and I didn't think I was able to do that. "Maybe next year".

Next morning we did Sunday Church at the conference. At one point Terry asked if there were any present who wanted to give their heart to Jesus that day, who wanted to become Christian right then and there. I had thought this through the previous night so stood quietly, a bystander, with my hands clasped behind me. Soon, very clearly, I felt strong fingers encircle my right wrist and tug me backwards. "Very funny", I thought. Trish had gone out to check that our kids were ok; no doubt this was her having fun with me as she returned to her seat. Imagine my surprise when I turned and nobody was there. No Trish. No-one was near enough to have reached out to touch me.

Who held my wrist? Who tugged my arm? In my innermost self I knew that it was Jesus. "Come now", He seemed to be saying, "don't wait till next year, I want you now".

Straight away I went to the front, I did whatever was asked of me, probably I prayed a "sinner's prayer", it was all just "extra"; I already had said "yes", I already knew that I belonged to Jesus, I was in a cloud of love. I was almost forty-three years old.

I have never for a minute doubted that Jesus actually came and took hold of my arm, and drew me to Himself. No matter how tough things have gotten over the years: how my life seemed to be inconsequential, how I was unemployed for long periods, how spiritually I was stuck, how I seemed not to be growing in Christ, not going anywhere for years at a time ..

Trish and I had serious trouble with our marriage for a time. My memory is that neither of us moved out because we both wanted to keep the children. Truth be told, I was more scared of God, who had given me Trish, than I was of Trish herself. After much prayer we decided to link up with Jesus into a three strand cord (Ecclesiastes 4:12). He has kept us together, bonding us ever stronger and closer.

Now, thirty (in July 2010) years later, I see Jesus' plans for me, for Trish, our marriage, our family, our salvation, and His Kingdom, all working out. There was never no progress. But it was always His progress. It is His plan, He equips and makes ready in His own time. Patience and perseverance are fruits of Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). We do not grow and become patient by living only in gratification. God is love (1 John 4:16), Jesus is Lord (Romans 10:9).

Amen.

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"Jesus Calls Me To Himself" is now a podcast on Spotify under PsalmsOfJohn

• Public link to podcast

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0gJyV1xAJsl4gipCXuYIGV

Be very blessed in our lovely Lord Jesus.

My Lungs: T2

Testimony 2: Supernatural God-Given Healing In My Lungs (1983)

The first time God impacted my life (where I was aware that it was Him) was after my wife, Trish, was “born again” (John 3:3; 1 Peter 1:23). I didn’t know that that was what had happened to her, but she had certainly become excited about her faith. She said she felt that Jesus was “real today”, that He speaks to us, that we can know Him personally, that He is still doing what He did in the Bible. A few months later she attended a charismatic Christian conference in our city. She told me that the conference would close with a healing mass at the Catholic Cathedral; the Archbishop would be there, with exciting visiting bishops, priests and other Christian leaders who were part of this new charismatic life in the church.

I needed to pass a tough medical exam for a job I really wanted. Years of heavy smoking had given me an awesome smokers cough. An earlier chest x-ray had shown a shadow in my lungs and I was warned that this could easily become lung cancer. Trish invited me to the healing mass to ask for healing for my lungs and for the ability for me to stop smoking; the kind of things Jesus did in the Bible. She assured me He still does these things today. Trish asked that I would give a definite undertaking to go; not a half-promise that I could winkle out of on the day.

Well, what a business! We got there just in time for it to start. I had never seen such a crowd at the Cathedral, it was packed and we were with the overflow in the gardens. Loudspeakers were set up outside but were too few to reach all the crowd. This clearly was not going to work so I suggested that we go home. I felt that I wasn't actually at the mass, and wasn't near the Archbishop, or at least one of the famous people, and it was obvious that nothing would happen. Trish looked at me, in that stern and disappointed way that wives have, and said "you promised". So we stayed. The mass took it's course, not that we were able to participate much, and then it was time for the prayers, my prayers, the special "Jesus" prayers for my body. I expected that everyone who was there for prayer would gather and the Archbishop would do whatever he was going to do. 

But practically everyone wanted prayer and there was no way that so many would be able to get in there to get a touch from the bishops and the Christian leaders. Then there was an announcement that prayer teams had stationed themselves around inside and outside the Cathedral. We were to find the team nearest to where we were and they would do the praying. I just looked at Trish, she looked back at me: “You promised”.

A sweet young couple were the prayer team near to us. Sweet is good, but I felt that these two had little life experience, they were hardly more than kids. What would they know? They introduced themselves and asked us to line up so they could pray for us in turn. We formed a big line. Trish and I were not near the front. The young couple looked at us all and conferred with each other. They decided that we were too many to pray for one-at-a-time so they wanted us to form a circle and hold hands, then they would pray for us all together.

My disappointment was like a heavy weight. You have to remember that this was all Trish: she was excited about Jesus and this Christian life she had found, I just found it scary. We didn't even get into the Cathedral so had effectively missed the mass. Trish was the Catholic one, I was kind-of Anglican. The Archbishop was not going to pray for me, we hadn't even seen him, or any of the bishops, or the famous visiting leaders. We just had the young couple; and they were not even going to present my case to Jesus as being special. I had absolutely no faith that anything could or would happen. None. So I told Trish. You know what she said. “You promised”. We stayed, we didn't think it would take much longer, so why not?

The young couple started to pray, in a general way, that each of us would be healed. I do not remember what they said. Then it was over. As we were walking back to our car, Trish, clearly apprehensive, asked me what did I think? Why was I so quiet? Had something happened?

I was in a kind of shock but eventually was able to tell her: “God put his hand inside my chest, into my lungs, I could feel His fingers as they gathered together all the black tar and gunk that was there, then he removed His hand and all the gunk went with it. Now my lungs are clear and clean”. I was stunned and awe-struck. I can still remember this happening. It was a miracle! It is still vivid in my mind. I passed my medical exam and got the job, my lungs showed up clear in the x-ray pictures. 

It was years later that Jesus healed me from smoking as I was not able to do that in my own strength. I do have some lung damage from all those years of thirty-a-day, but I know that I will not die from lung cancer. God healed me. Trish's lovely Jesus healed me.

Praise Him, our Saviour!

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"My Lungs: T2" is now a podcast on Spotify under PsalmsOfJohn

• Public link to podcast

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0rSDULpotllTGW8WoO4dws

Blessings in Jesus.