Inspiration for the thirsty soul

My way, your way, their way, our way ... but all that matters is His way

2010-09-07T23:07:00.000-07:00

In Shrek, the ogre, having had his swamp disturbed by Donkey, Pinocchio, the three pigs, the wolf and many other Fairy Tale creatures, decides to address their eviction with Lord Farquaad. On leaving, he shouts, “Fairy tale creatures, don’t get too comfortable”.

It is in the nature of all creatures to settle. No matter what kind of circumstances we find ourselves in, we will soon tame it and make it as comfortable as possible.

The problem with settling, is that it can be at odds with God’s agenda. There are times when His spirit stands still, but such seasons of settlement are never an end. The Kingdom is always advancing.

In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul discusses Moses' descent from Mount Sinai, with the tablets of the law. His face was so aglow with the glory of God, that the people asked him to cover his face with a veil. That same glory symbolized the ultimate outworking of the law. In Galatians he adds that the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. It was not meant to be an end in and of itself, but the means to a far greater end.

Paul concludes that the Hebrews were happy to settle for the law. As such they tamed the law, until the resulting institution, not their God, became their identifier. The upshot of the process was that the objective of the law, Christ, was rejected as an inconvenient truth. He came unto His own and His own received Him not.

Now, the church is at a stage where it has also significantly tamed divine revelation and institutionalized its models of church governance. We are at a point where leaders feel they have got it and that it is working fine thank you – but don’t get too comfortable, this is not the end.

The wood, hay and stubble that will be tried in the fires of tribulation (1 Corinthians 3:12), will reveal the underlying gold, silver and precious stones of our faith. Ephesians 1 alludes to the glory of the church when it says, “now unto principalities and powers is known, through the church, the unsearchable mysteries of God”.

We are entering an unsettling time that will strip away our comfort zones until we exchange our proud differences for the common cause of our faith: the Lord Jesus Christ. He, alone, is our separation: which may prove to be a very inconvenient truth to many.

Image source: www.flickriver.com/places/germany/thuringia/jena

Seek first the Kingdom and the things you deem so important will follow

2010-09-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

John D Rockerfeller made the point that if all you seek in life is wealth (or power or success), you will never achieve it.

Most who achieve great things in life, do not pursue success. Their goals are narrow and they serve the goal not the other way around. They put their backs into it over a long period, until their inputs derive a greater outcome.

Paul said, “I sowed, another watered but God added the increase” (1 Corinthians 6). He was an “inputs” man, who concerned himself with doing the right things and doing things right, whilst entrusting God to translate that into something significant.

Jesus was just the same, serving a narrow mandate, whilst entrusting the significance of that mandate to His father. Hebrews 10:5-7, confirms that He came to be a sacrifice, but the outcomes of that single act changed the course of history.

Galatians 5, which teaches on the fruits of the spirit, is often erroneously taught as an endowment, a gift dispensed by the Holy Spirit. But fruits are consequences, not gifts. They follow, never precede. As Jesus observed, we will be known by our fruits. An apple farmer sows and waters, but the proof of his labour is that it bears fruit in time. Similarly, our relationship with Jesus will bear fruit, to make us Christ-like.

Hebrews 2: 4 and Mark 16:14-18, amongst others, also imply that the evidence of God’s power will follow. It is wrong to follow spiritual signs and wonders or to regard them as a prerequisite for the gospel, although many preachers have gone to great lengths to evoke conditions for signs and wonders, even to the point of invoking mantras and formulas. Signs follow us, not the other way around.

God’s way is for us to add line upon line and precept upon precept, whilst entrusting the outcomes to God. The bible does not say we should follow signs, but that signs follow our witness. Jesus was wary of those who followed signs, saying in Matthew 7:7, “seek the kingdom and all those other things will be added”. Jesus is the essence of that Kingdom, so by implication we must put Jesus first and the Spirit will do the rest.

Don’t tell me the church cannot work without signs and wonders and don’t expect the church to be sustained by such signs and wonders. The church works because Jesus is in her midst and the shout of a king is amongst us. Not only that, but we will be sustained, because He will never leave nor forsake us. As such, neither angels nor demons, heights or depths, things present or to come, will ever separate us from His love.

So serve God and focus on what He has called you to do and in due time you will reap if you faint not (Galatians 6:9). I believe that God does great things, but we must focus on what matters to God, which is to build a Christ-centered kingdom. If we do that, we will see His witness confirmed in us.

Arise, shine, for thy light has come and the glory of God is risen upon you

2010-09-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

An unbalanced perspective of the Godhead, leads to hues and shades of God that detract from His glory and rob us of power. Just as white light results from the full mix of the visible spectrum, so the truth of God is reflected in the balance of the three sources of divine light: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I grew up in an orthodox context. It gave me good foundations but never brought me to a personal knowledge of Christ. My wife had an evangelical background, which was full of sound doctrine but otherwise staid. I guess it was a miracle that I came to know Jesus at all.

I was in the army, when a fellow soldier told me I also needed the Holy Spirit. After a few weeks of seeking God, I was mightily filled with the Spirit: an experience that set me on fire for God. That transformed me from an orthodox pew-warmer to a passionate believer, leaving me with the view that the power of the Holy Spirit is best revealed in a personal conviction of Christ.

As the years ebbed and waned I came to see that the Pentecostal movement had so swayed to the Holy Spirit that Jesus was almost passé. Many still agonise over the dearth of miracles without fully understanding the profound miracle already extended to all believers through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

So where does this all leave me? Well I still value my roots, for they gave me solid foundations and I value my Pentecostal experiences, which gave me a dynamic faith. However, I am now more concerned with finding the sweet spot of a balanced faith.

Without knowing the father's will, we are self-serving, but without the indwelling Christ we lack the capacity to do the Father's will. Yet without the Holy Spirit, the will of God and the provision of Jesus, risks a form of Godliness without power.

If Jesus had independent power, He would have been reduced to another miracle man. Rather He obeyed His Father, to which the Holy Spirit, through the gifts described in 1 Corinthians 14, added His independent witness, confirming Him as the Christ. Thus by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every truth was established.

If we want to see real evidence of power in our lives, we must first be in the Father's will. The Father's will is to see all things restored through His Son, whom He made heir of all things. Thus, when our obedience to the Father becomes an expression of Christ in us, the hope of glory, the Spirit will independently ratify our witness, as we read in Hebrews 2:4.

If we focus on the Holy Spirit, we will embarrass Him, for He came to reveal Christ, not to be an independent source of power. But if we focus on Jesus and the will of God in Christ, the Holy Spirit will independently confirm our life witness.

Image source: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3187/3084323266_74962e5f89_o.jpg

Of the Son He said, "Thy throne Oh God, is forever and ever"

2010-08-30T23:56:00.000-07:00

There is a remarkable inter-dependence in the Godhead. For me it describes the ultimate model of leadership, where three roles merge into one entity, functioning co-dependently, whilst presenting human history with a unified, balanced witness. The three are functionally one, not just in terms of their being One God.

One of the best examples of these points is seen in the way the Father defers to the Son in Hebrews 1, saying, “Thy throne Oh God, is forever and ever”. Such words were never uttered to or about angels, because they were reserved for the Son. They are an expression of adoration and praise from the Father to the Son.

If the Godhead is a model of leadership, and for me church authority pertains to leadership, not leaders per se, then we are faced with a contradiction. The head pastor of that divine leadership above, in honoring the Son, effectively shows that His role as the Father is not a level or hierarchy, but a role amongst roles. Jesus reciprocated by saying that He could do nothing without the Father ... and evidently the Father has the same regard for the Son. The same principles apply to the Holy Spirit.

There is no doubt that the role of the Father is to be the final court of appeal, the referee and judge of all that is done in the earth. As such, He validates the works of the Son, but does execute His own mandate. He is independent of the Son's works, a posture that is so vital to preserving and confirming Christ's credentials.

A correct reading of scriptures like John 1:3 or Colossians 1:15-20, amongst others, confirms that whilst in the general sense God made the worlds, the bible specifically attributes the act of creation to the Son. Thus He was the light that shone into the dark void to bring the worlds into being and He will also conclude that work by folding up the heavens like a garment (Hebrews 1: 10-12).

The best confirmation of the interplay between the Father and Son is to be found in 1 Corinthians 15:26-28, which clearly states that when the last enemy, death, is destroyed, Jesus will submit all that was once submitted to Him, back to the Father. Then God shall be all in all. That confirms the mandate of Christ and His terms of reference and helps us to interpret all that He ever done.

The Godhead is analogous to the relationship between a Chairman (who does not do, but holds the CEO accountable), the CEO (who executes the mandate of the board and its shareholders) and the Secretary (the faithful scribe and pace-keeper). That succinctly describes the roles of Father, Son and Spirit.

The centrality of Jesus Christ or Yashua, is paramount to God’s intent and purpose. In recent decades the church has become somewhat sidetracked by the Holy Spirit to the point of following His power, for the sake of power, where in truth the key to all His power is Jesus. The Spirit came to reveal Christ, so when we make the Holy Spirit a focal point, we diminish the power of the Holy Spirit and we also oppose the intent and purpose of God in Christ, thus doubly weakening the church.

The church's one and only true foundation, is Jesus Christ her Lord

2010-08-26T07:14:00.000-07:00

When Jesus met the woman at the well, He introduced some remarkable truths. Rather typically, our regal king used few words to convey volumes of meaning across many dimensions: He specifically addressed the needs of the woman, but that overflowed to the needs of her community. Beyond that He spoke to Jews and Samarians and ultimately also addressed the church that would follow in His footsteps.

Sometimes I ponder how gainsayers fuel their doubts, for even if I had nothing else I would still be compelled to believe Him: His words are just so profound. Through great economy of language, He managed to reach the poor, the rich, the simple and wise, the Jew and the Gentile.

He addressed a long standing dispute over Jacob's well: Samaritans argued that the great patriarch had called it the house of God, and so it should be, whilst the Jews favored Jerusalem, because God covenanted with Abraham on Mount Moriah.

In cutting through the dispute He dispensed with a time or place religion, arguing that the only bases for future worship would be Spirit and Truth. Because God is Spirit and cannot be contained in buildings made by men, He made it possible for us to relate to Him through a mutual engagement of Spirits. Jesus also dismissed time issues, when He said: "The time is coming and has come, for all to worship God in Spirit and Truth", by which He implied that our access through the broken veil would have an inception without an end.

"Truth" in this context means "reality", by which Jesus implied that our experience of God would cease to be a symbolic shadow of dispensations to come. As the realisation of all that went before, Christ became the mediator of a better covenant, His blood speaks better things than Abel and His sacrifice gave us a new and living way, by which we also gained access to the grace wherein we now stand.

It is easy for believers to now stand aloof of all that and see both sides of the argument. However, Jesus did not preclude us from His argument, because, like them, we also contend over models, doctrines and dogmas. Unfortunately events of history are about to overtake all of that, including our wineskins, for all their virtue, and our buildings, for all their majesty. None of those things will ever contain the power and glory of our King or His advancing kingdom. As they rightly said in Narnia, "He is not a tame lion".

The coming struggle will converge believers from diverse contexts around a common position in Christ. The future struggle between the Kingdom of light and its antithesis, will not be about abstractions. They will all be about He who is, was and is to come. That is the foundation and capstone of our faith, its fabric and its life, for in Christ we have a building not made by human hands, a worthy habitation for the most High God.

Christ, and only Christ, became the fulfilment of all that went before. He is the key to every truth, word or prophesy ever uttered by God. As the Lord of the Harvest He will firmly draw the battle lines between those who are for Him and those who are not. It is that simple.

The wood, hay and stubble of our differences will not endure, but the gold, silver and precious stones of a redemptive faith will ... to rise above every distraction until the church victorious becomes the church at rest:.

Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war,

she awaits the consummation of peace forevermore.

Till with vision glorious, her longing eyes are blest,

and the great church victorious, shall be the church at rest ~ S J Stone.

Even so, come Lord Jesus, Amen.

Image source: http://www.cstrikelp.com/

The path of the bride is converging with the groom as we enter the climax of the ages

2010-08-24T00:37:00.000-07:00

I am told that Voltaire once referred to the Apostle Paul as an “ugly little Jew”. How he even drew his conclusions so many centuries after the great man lived and died, is a bit of a mystery. That said, appearances never defined great men. Rather Paul referred to the sweet fragrance of Christ in His life, the powerful essence that endows the faithful with a regal air. Paul added, that the same fragrance, whilst alluring to many, remained a deep offence to others.

Now Paul also alluded to one of the key factors for that sweet fragrance. In Ephesians 4 he makes the point that, despite many differences in administration there is still one Lord, one Faith, On Baptism, One God and Father over us all.

Divergent administrations reflect the many different ways in which believers across cultures have given expression to their faith. Of course I tread on dangerous ground here, for the same Apostle was quick to add that not all who say they are believers are believers.

Indeed, the fringes of our faith are often far from wholesome, but as Jesus once said, “Let the tares and wheat grow together. When the Lord of the Harvest comes, will He not separate them and burn the chaff?”

Despite many differences. I have met believers across the spectrum of life that are substantially in agreement on the most vital tenets of our faith. My sense is that the gathering storm clouds signal a period of great struggle that will drive believers towards a common world view.

Over recent decades, automobiles started to look alike, as they all pursued an elusive aerodynamic ideal. Well maybe force of circumstances will also oblige believers across the earth to join ranks against our common enemies.

Yes we have our differences and maybe we always will have, but the future of the church will not be a celebration of differences. Rather we will converge around the most vital identifiers of our faith, to emerge as a bride adorned for her groom. Sam Stone put it best:

The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord, She is His new creation by water and the word. From heaven He came and sought her to be His holy bride, and with His blood He bought her and for her life He died.

The crux of our faith is Jesus Christ. That is why Paul said, “I sought nothing amongst you other than Christ and Him crucified”. He spoke well, for the simple reality is that the coming war will not be about us or our many differences, it will all be about Jesus. He is the scythe of God and the Lord of the Harvest. He is the whole counsel of God. He is the key to all that God is doing in the earth.

Image source: http://www.fotoviva.co.uk/PhotosStock/storm-coming-photograph.jpg

He who has the Son has life, He who has not the Son, has nothing

2010-08-20T03:10:00.000-07:00

New Testament writers had a wonderful way of using few words to speak great volumes. I am not sure they would have been too popular with today's book publishers or other media channels, because single paragraph books really don't spin the tills.

It has taken me half a lifetime to get a basic grasp of what Paul taught, because he refused to elaborate. He would sometimes reduce significant truth to a paragraph, but Jesus was even more elegant.

It was Jesus who simply stated, "if you will not eat my flesh or drink my blood, you will have no part of me". If I blogged anything like that you would cast a few bricks my way, banish me to Siberia and then delete my URL. Yet He offered no clarification, not even when a substantial part of His support base walked away.

As a king he had no need to explain Himself, but as the son of God there just was nothing to explain. God is. That is not an opinion, it is a statement that will defend itself though history, even when there is not one supporter left standing. It matters not what I have to say about it all: heaven and earth will pass away before one, just one, single utterance of God fails.

Jesus also reduced the entire law of Moses to a sentence. I am reminded of a philosophy test that asked, "if this is a question answer it", to which one wise-guy replied, "if this is an answer, mark it". The difference though, is that in Jesus' case, He effectively stated, "this is truth, do it". One small sentence captured the spirit and essence of the entire Mosaic law when He said, "Love the Lord your God and do unto others what you would have them do unto you".

Wow, if you were a student of the law, you would have got by, not through extended study or careful summations, but through your ability to recall that one, single sentence. Well actually, quoting the sentence would have got you 1 mark, whilst your grasp of its significance would have accounted for the other 99.

It was John, in 1 John 5:2, who made one of the most telling statements, when He reduced the totality of the New Testament to a similar yet infinitely elegant equation. Having spent time in the intimate presence of Jesus, he was best qualified to say, "No its not about your much studying (Paul rightly argued that such would make one made), nor is about your institutions or dogmas or doctrines or concepts or bright ideas or original thoughts." Just about anything that we regard as so important pails into insignificance when it comes to Jesus. Thus John aptly stated, "He who has the Son has eternal life, but He who does not obey the Son of God, will not see life: for the wrath of God remains on Him."

All He grasped was what Abel once grasped when, without so much as a word, He brought back to God all that God had once entrusted to Him. He brought none of His sweat capital or original thought, no impressive rereferences or higher debates. He simply offered a lamb to God ... because he had acquired enough of a sense of God's heart to know that was all that God wanted him to bring.

I say again, as I have said a few times of late ... the battle lines are forming around the one and only name given amongst men whereby all might be saved. There is no higher name. At His name, angels and devils, slaves and kings, the bond and free, male and female, Jew and Scyhthian, will all bow their knees. The coming struggle will reduce to one, simple, elegant equation - "what have you done with the son of God?"

Image source: http://amyegraham.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/narnia-lion1.jpg

Giving the finger to God, a sign of the dark times we are now entering into

2010-08-19T02:51:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I was in the Louvre museum, enjoying a Renaissance section of the museum, when my eye caught a very offensive gesture in a crucifixion scene. Off to one side, a bystander in the crowd had raised his hand to flex a rude hand signal to the dying Christ. I have tried searching for the painting in question, to no avail, but it is out there somewhere.

I think it was on the same trip where I saw a Muslim in Hyde Park, wipe his backside on the bible. The act may have been symbolic, but the gesture carried a full weight of meaning.

There was a time when such offences were frowned on by society in general. Nowadays, if anyone dared say a word out of place about Mohammed they would be in quick and serious trouble. Indeed, so sensitive has the world become to the Muslim cause, that US authorities have approved a mosque within sight of ground zero. I don't want to debate that, but I am concerned by the way that everyone is so desperate to appease Islam, whilst having no concern about blasphemous use of the name of Jesus in movies or the offensive portrayal of our Saviour in gay or lewd contexts.

Okay, so far so bad, but let me say again that the battle lines are now forming, around the only legitimate force of God that the hordes of darkness have ever really feared. Ultimately the devil and his minions will war against Christ and His armies on the great plains of Megiddo, to bring all the evil in the earth to a final climax. However, that battle line is emerging even as I speak. Whatever our perspectives, know that satan and his followers fully respect the threat that Jesus poses, so much so that they will even try to present a forged version of the Christ to the world. That is how far they are willing to go to distract humanity from the truth.

The world is no longer weighing the balances as it negotiates moral sensitivities, it is all but bulldozing through everything that is right and good. The storm clouds are gathering and a great darkness is starting to creep over the face of the earth.

Make no mistake, this war will not be about your denomination or dogma or other deviations, it will squarely relate to Jesus, the risen, conquering king, who is preparing to make war against all unrighteousness. The same, fearful king will soon ride out to tread the winepress of God's wrath. As that time nears, believers all around the earth will either stand united by their testimony, or they will, by default, fall to the other side.

There will be no middle ground or the neutral lands so long treasured by some nations. He will spew the lukewarm and indifferent out of His mouth. It is going to be all or nothing. I predict that a percentage of all believers who read this will eventually find themselves on the wrong side of the great Harvester's sickle, for a strong, seducing spirit of delusion is starting to sweep across the multitudes, causing many to stumble over the moral and ethical issues of our generation.

This year alone has seen the world's worst floods, the strongest magnitude earthquake, the worst earthquake disaster, raging fires, soaring summer temperatures and the emergence of super bugs. Yet, rather than repent, the growing crises are evidently raising the ante, resulting in the kind of offences against God that are best described as giving the finger to heaven. Heaven help this generation if that is so, for it is a fearsome thing to fall into the hands of a Living God.

Image source: http://thewaterfront.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/3352476359_61feaabf3d.jpg?w=500

Less is more, more or less, until less becomes less and more becomes more

2010-08-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

A friend appropriately encouraged me by SMS to keep things simple and to take more of God's truth at face value. He closed by saying, "Less is more".

Now, whilst in essence I agree with his challenge and indeed as a family we have significantly simplified our lives of late, I still have some dilemmas, most notably that it is just too easy for outsiders to oversimplify the realities of others.

How do I tell my wife and children that we should find ways to simplify our prevailing challenges, without provoking a cynical response? How do I tell them it will all be okay, whilst in reality it is anything but? How does my friend reconcile mounting debts against a non-existent income? Or how does my missionary friend, who lives in a completely off-the-beaten track village in Zambia, rationalise his trust in God whilst his resources are being consumed by the disease that is threatening the life of his child? I could go on, suffice to say that for those in crisis, life is rarely simple.

I recently reached out to someone in dire straights, but then heard that her daughter, the dux of her school and a fine young woman, was being asked to leave the school because the family could no longer pay her fees. Hmm, that's not a simple issue is it, well not if you are in the middle of it? We could help them to a degree, but with our own resources rather strained I chose to approach the school board and plead her cause, only to be told, "No we can't help her, she must learn to trust the Lord".

To say that I almost choked on my breakfast at the remark, would be an understatement. Look, I know schools have their own challenges and must walk their own tightropes, especially so for smaller, private Christian schools, but I had to counter with arguments about a limited bursary or a fee discount and a few other options, none of which proved to be acceptable to the school. Last I heard they were faced with a dead-end.

Its that kind of oversimplification that James criticised when he said, don't say God bless you to your brother and leave him wretched.

Look, this is not about challenging anyone to help their brother nor am I trying to put you on a guilt trip - that's another issue altogether. But I am inviting a debate about where the balances lie. How far do we take simplification, which, in principle, is a great, vital and biblical call? I concede that we do tend to over-complicate a lot of things, but is over-simplification an appropriate antidote? What do you think? What are your personal experiences and how have you found your own balances?

The unchanging ways of the Great I am, give us an objective faith and great hope

2010-08-16T03:53:00.000-07:00

Our fathers have a great penchant for saying, “Later”. The cat’s in the cradle song put it well, saying, “We’ll get together then and we’ll have a good time then”. For so many of us, a father’s word is somewhat flexible, offering well-meaning promises with no guarantee of fulfillment. This is not a go at Dads – I am one and I know how imperfect I am. Its more about contrasting the consistency of God.

Hebrews 12:4 confirms that our fathers discipline us from time to time according to their whim or at their own pleasure, but God chastens us for our good so we can share in His glory. What that means is that God is not capricious, but I will go further in suggesting that God does not even dispense favors. He is not a heavenly butler or vending machine, He is God.

Moses related to Him as the Great I am. Contrast that with a father who loves to say “I will”, but often doesn’t. God is not an “I will” Father, but an “I am” Father. He defines who He is in absolute and unequivocal terms.

The winds blow where they want to said Jesus in John 3:6, because God created a self-adjusting, self-perpetuating universe, that is governed by His laws. Like a great watchmaker He set up the mechanism, wound it up and then left it all to run its own course with little or no intervention. In fact, it is because of that fact that end-time judgments will effectively be self-imposed. God set within the mechanism various self-correcting laws that are now being pushed to their limits by human excesses. As we exceed the design envelope of the created world, the system will self correct, bringing untold troubles and woes on humanity.

Now the same Great I am, wrote the laws and embraced the covenant that now governs the state of grace wherein all believers now live. That state of grace is not subject to moments of whim or expressions of good favor on God’s part, rather it is preordained by an “I am” God. To access His grace and favor we must step into it. It will not come to us or adapt to our perspectives. We must move and change to experience it.

Consider healing. There are two themes of healing in New Testament teaching. Signs are given to unbelievers so that they may turn back to God. Then there is the healing which Jesus defined as “the children’s bread”. James 5:14 links it to biblical authority, but it is equally linked to a predefined outcome, namely, “and they shall be healed”. Jesus also confirmed, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you need and it shall be given to you" (John 15:7).

I know that many have not been healed, but that deserves a separate discussion. The challenge I must leave you with is to stop being subjective about God, in assuming He does favors or good turns in response to our prayers or subjectively rejects you because you reject yourself. Rather you need to come to Him who is and is able to reward those who diligently seek Him.

Image source: Eagle Nebula, Hubble

You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God

2010-08-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

The coming battlefield will not be about ideology or faith. It will not be about dogmas, doctrines or denominations. It will not be about Greek, Hebrew, the tongues of men or of angels. It will not be about whether we worship in Jerusalem, Samaria, Canterbury or Rome. It will not relate to the full moon, the sun, the seasons or the time of day.

Future battle lines will be drawn around one subject, the eternal word of God: Jesus the light of the world.

For all our original thought and the initiatives that have characterized church life through the ages, our wood, hay and stubble will all be tried in the fires of tribulation. From the flames will emerge the timeless gold, silver and precious stones of a refined and pure faith that is, was and always will be built on the rock of ages.

All our structures will stumble, but Christ, the son over His own house, will sustain that which is founded in Him.

He is the Chief Cornerstone that the builders rejected. It is not patterns or concepts that sustain us, but the revelation of Christ as the son of God. Our grasp of His divinity has changed our lives and will yet lift us from the utmost to utmost. He alone sustains His people in the face of every contradiction. Jesus stood in the heart of darkness and the seat of paganism to say, “on this rock, of revelation, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it”.

It saddens me that the Pentecostals so emphasized the Holy Spirit that Jesus became a symbol. It saddens me that orthodoxy, in trying to rationalize Pentecostalism, compromised the power of the Spirit to deepen our faith in Christ. It also saddens me that in my own life struggles, I have at times forgotten who it is that walks beside me to bring me to glory.

In the coming battlefields, men will ask again, who is this? The manna of Moses had a similar inference, yet they were fed for forty years by a “what is this?” The new world order will not be centered around a system or a logic, but a person: the counterfeit of Christ. That is because, unlike the church, Satan and his hoards do believe in Jesus and tremble at the name. They know He is the key to our strength and faith. That is why they will tolerate almost anything short of a belief in the man Christ Jesus. Thus the final battlefield will once and for all answer that great cry, declaring to all “He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God”.

Image Source: Brian Jekel at http://www.picturesofjesus4you.com/images/baptism_of_christ_jekel.jpg

Jesus is the only name given amongst men whereby we might be saved

2010-08-12T23:16:00.000-07:00

Just two days ago I posted a blog on Newton's involvement in Arianism and how that signalled one of the great threats to our faith. I made the point that it is not the glaringly obvious errors that we must worry about, especially in this age of compromise, it is more the insiduous, subtle shifts in doctrine that are sadly quite widespread in modern Christendom. The more we try to contemporise the church, the more we expose ourselves to the risk of drifting off course and becoming assimilated into the world culture.

Well, today I found that on this day in 1553, John Servetus was arrested as a heretic and subsequently burnt at the stake. As a scientist and philosopher his public stature was significant, but we must add to that the fact that he actively participated in the reformation. He was no obvious heretic and even his Arianist views were ever so subtly removed from the central dogmas of the Christian faith. He accepted that the Logos, as described in Genesis 1 and John 1, was the eternal word of God and the force of creation. However, that Word only became Jesus when the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. Accordingly, He regarded Jesus as a created being, less than God. In no other respect did He discredit Jesus.

Unfortunately, His position is key to our entire understanding of scripture. It intrigues me that Satan and the system over which he rules, would gladly have us go so far in our faith as to believe in Jesus, accepting Him as a mighty man or a prophet or even as the saviour, but they baulk at His claim to divinity. Someone once made the point that we would never forge monopoly money, but some would forge the real dollar note because of its intrinsic value. Well, the argument went on to say that attempts to forge a false model of Christ, reflect His ultimate value and the fact that He is the keystone of our faith. No wonder that the bible calls Him the stumbling stone of Zion, for it is not our faith that causes such controversy, but our Saviour.

If Jesus were anything less than God, His vicarious act of sacrifice would be worthless. If it were ever possible for a mortal man to intervene before God and secure our salvation, then sin was never sin and the entire gospel is a sham. More than that, as we see in the separation of the prophets, priests and kings of old and the principle that only in the mouth of two or three witnesses can truth be confirmed, the relegation of Jesus to a less than divine position, robs the Godhead of a complete and valid witness.

The only credentials Jesus ever invoked were His submission to the Father, by which He refuted any argument about His being a self-proclaimed saviour. More than that, it was vital for the independent justice of God to witness and validate the cross, without which we would not have had any guarantee of salvation. The only way all that was possible was for God to mediate between His righteousness and our humanity, by casting the eternal spirit of Christ into a human frame. We respect the weight of an oath, which is sworn by a higher reference, but God who could swear by no greater, swore by Himself, when God on earth, who mediated as the Son of man, cut a new covenant on behalf of all men with the great God above.

Christendom may have splitered into many emphases and positions, but there is no doubt in my heart that the final rampart of the war against the church relates to the pinnacle and essence of our faith, Jesus. Thus the only remaining option for Satan in His quest to destroy the work of God and advance His own dark cause, is to produce the ultimate forgery: a false Christ who will seduce many and drag the world away from the rock of all ages. Once that happens, the house as we know it will fall, but what will remain will be that which is rooted and grounded in Christ, the true church of the Living God.

Therefore don't tell me you go to church or believe, only tell me what you have done with the Son of God, for that is the crux on which all of life and eternity hinges. To that same point, salvation is not about how good you have been or what works you have done, nor is it a conciousness of Christ as a prophet, a mighty man or a sacrficial offering, it is about Him being the foundation of our lives and the only gateway to heaven. The struggle of the coming years will hinge entirely on such truths.

Will this age of compromise lead us astray or will the Lord of the Harvest intervene?

2010-08-11T00:22:00.000-07:00

Early this morning I read that Isaac Newton was a closet Arianist, which means that despite his public testimony, privately he questioned the Trinity and believed that Jesus was created, making Him less than God. Later a friend invited me to join a group which advocates a Trinitarian position, but I chose to write instead.

Arius was a dissident of the Nicene position, the council commissioned by Constantine the Great to canonize the bible and its doctrines. He preached his alternative theology around 250 to 336 AD and was significantly influenced by Lucius of Antioch. However, proliferation of Arianism helped to reinforce and cement the Nicene view of a Triune God.

The error persisted to the modern era, but it intrigues me that such a seemingly small departure from truth should have had such an influence on the church. Of course Arianism is a big error to Christians, but Arians still believed in Jesus and many other doctrines - they just could not see Jesus as equal with God.

That brings me to the crux of this article. Much of what the church is struggling with now, is not a glaring set of errors, but variations on a theme with significant consequences, which are so veiled that they are being assimilated into the mainstream faith. The orbit of the earth around the sun is just erratic enough for scientists to say that its position 100,000 years from now is unpredictable, just as seemingly little errors will ultimately compromise the essence of our faith.

Thankfully, the Nicenes rallied when their position was challenged. Indeed, it was thanks to persecution that the faith preserved its integrity and stayed on track. Does that predict a coming struggle for us?

Jesus, in the parable of the tares and wheat, makes allowance for the fact that truth and untruth will grow alongside each other in the course of history, until they both reach maturity - at which point He will separate the two and cast the tares into the fire. Given what we read in 1 Peter 4:17 about judgment beginning in the house of God, we must appreciate that the separation process will not be organic, but an act of God - one that will begin with the pain of judgment. It means that tough times will come on the church to force believers out of our prevailing apathy into a decision about what it is we believe.

Jesus despised a lukewarm faith, whilst Hebrews 10:38 adds that if we draw back God will not take pleasure in us.

Sadly I am seeing a growing apathy and indifference in believers. Daily I read trivia that shows no sense of Godly fear and a scant sense of the seriousness of our times. But, that is all about to change. We will be shaken up. Such shakings will renew convictions and redefine the faith, of the faithful, but they will present a very uncomfortable reality to those who have settled into the comfortableness of our collective compromises. The process will force all of us to nail our colors to the mast and choose our paths, but once the moment has come and gone, the gulf between truth and untruth will widen into a great chasm. Then will come the end when the Lord of the Harvest will use His scythe to finally and permanently separate the tares and the wheat.

Praying effectively: What role does Jesus play in our daily trials and struggles

2010-08-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

According to Romans 8, "The Spirit makes intersession for us according to the will of God". I don't wish to be contentious, but Romans 8:26-27 is not about the Holy Spirit (in spite of any Greek subtexts in the passage).

The context is about Jesus and His role in sustaining our walk of faith. Thus Paul opens the chapter saying, "there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ", whilst adding later, "if anyone has not the spirit of Christ, He is none of His." It is Christ's indwelling life that sustains us in our journeys of faith, thus bringing about the transformation of our minds that ultimately reconciles us to the Father's will.

Therefore the interceding Spirit is Christ and the text is not an argument for speaking or praying in tongues. According to a number of New Testament writers (1 Timothy 2:5), there is only one mediator between God and man, and that is Christ. He alone is the great High Priest so adequately described by the writer to the Hebrews. To that end, Hebrews 2 argues that He had to be made like Hs brothers (verse 17) so that He might become a merciful and faithful High priest. No one else was more qualified to intercede between us and the Father, than the Lord Jesus Christ.

Having made a sacrifice for our sins, He also pierced the veil that separated us from God and there made atonement for our sins, so that through His torn flesh He might make a new and living way of access to the Father (Hebrews 10:19). That access is through one of a few thrones in heaven, notably the throne of grace, which God has provided for us as an escape from the judgement throne.

Now, what we see is that Jesus, having passed into the heavens, makes intercession for us. The model used by Paul is a replica of the tabernacle, but aligned vertically (not across the ground), by which He passed not into the sacred chamber at the other side of the tabernacle, but into the very presence of God who is seated in the most sacred of all places: the throne room of glory above us, in the heavens.

His presence there is for the purpose of intercession. That has a passive and active implication. His passive presence, which bears before the Father the perpetual witness of the wounds of Calvary, literally intervenes on our behalf and stays the judgement of God. It is a line that the Father can never cross without invalidating the sacrifice made for our sins. Though the Father may at times be angered by our life choices, the presence of a wounded priest restrains His hand and stays His judgement. That said, never underestimate our ability to step beyond Christ's covering - which will expose us to the wrath of God. It is truly a fearful thing to fall into the hands of such a just, awesome, living God. We do well to fear Him.

The active role of Christ involves "groanings that cannot be uttered", whereby Jesus implores God, as He prays for us and bears us up through all our struggles. That brings me to the crux of this article. As He prays for us, does He too experience the hits and misses we experience in prayer? Do His deepest yearnings go unanswered and unfulfilled?

I would like to leave the question hanging there, but let me bring some perspective.

We must believe that Jesus contends with the Father, else His intercession is just a self-fulfilling act, devoid of the substance of those prayers and groanings that Paul wrote about. If He merely mouths the Father's predetermined will, His prayers are a sham. Rather, Jesus stands between us and the Father. He serves the Father's will, but relates to our weaknesses and serves to reconcile those two poles. Thus He wrestles with many real contradictions.

Okay, that is controversial enough and I think I have said enough for now. However, although I will work through subsequent articles to develop a more comprehensive position, I would love to hear your views, especially as this is a meaty and very relevant debate.

Image source; The cone Nebula, Hubble - the best and most reverend portrayal of the Great Intercessor I can find

There is empirical evidence that prayer heals, as reported by AFP

2010-08-05T23:34:00.000-07:00

The following was so intriguing I replicated in full to be true to the originator, AFP:

Washington - Prayer heals when it's close-up and personal, and there's a study to prove it.

It's not just any kind of prayer, but "proximal intercessory prayer", or PIP - when one or more people pray for someone in that person's presence and often with physical contact - that was found by a team of doctors, scientists and religious experts to have remarkable results in healing some patients.

A team of medical doctors and scientists led by Indiana University professor of religion Candy Gunther Brown found in the study, conducted in rural Mozambique, that prayer brought "highly significant" improvements to hearing-impaired participants and significant changes to the visually impaired.

Fourteen hard-of-hearing and 11 visually impaired study participants were recruited at meetings of Pentecostal Christian groups in Mozambican villages and towns.

They were tested with a handheld audiometer or vision charts, depending on their impairment, before and after they took part in a prayer session.

Clinical effects

"There was a highly significant improvement in hearing across 18 ears of 11 subjects" and "significant visual improvements," says the study, which will be published in September in the peer-reviewed Southern Medical Journal.

Two of the hard-of-hearing study participants were able to hear sounds 50dB lower after the prayer session and three of the visually impaired subjects saw their vision improve from 20/400 or worse to 20/80 or better.

The study focused on the clinical effects of prayer and did not attempt to explain how or why some participants saw such remarkable improvements.

"This study shows that in some instances there are measurable effects that can be demonstrated using clinical studies," said Brown, whose interest in the study was to explore spiritual healing practices.

"I consider this very much a first step and an indication of the direction for where research needs to head. Much more needs to be found out about why these effects are noticed, what are the mechanisms, are there structural changes involved," she said.

"But one thing this study tells us is that a major reason that Pentecostalism is growing is the widespread perception that healing takes place."

The Pentecostals typically spent between one and 15 minutes administering PIP, but some spent an hour or more with a "patient".

Psychosomatic improvement

"They placed their hands on the recipient's head and sometimes embraced the person in a hug" while praying softly out loud, according to the study.

The study focussed on hearing and visual conditions because they allow improvements to be objectively and easily measured, and are less susceptible to perceived or psychosomatic improvement than conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis.

Rural areas in Mozambique were chosen for the study because eyeglasses and hearing aids were not readily available there and Pentecostal groups who specialise in prayers for those with hearing and vision impairments were active there.

Brown and colleagues urged more studies "to assess whether PIP may be a useful adjunct to standard medical care for certain patients", especially in countries with limited care options.

"The implications are potentially vast given World Health Organisation estimates that 278 million people, 80% of whom live in developing countries, have moderate to profound hearing loss in both ears and 314 million people are visually impaired," the study says.

Source: AFP, 6 August 2010

Image Source: http://yehudafm.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/yeshua-still-heals-today.jpg

Its time to let go and move on, time to walk on the waters and live again

2010-08-02T23:44:00.000-07:00

No matter what part we play in initiating our own crises, more often than not there is a degree of injustice in it all. If you think back to David's struggle with Saul, you might argue that David got ahead of himself and thus provoked the king to jealousy, but the ongoing persecution of David was still unwarranted and unjust. Yet David submitted to God and did little to defend his own cause until Saul fell on his own sword. The resulting closure enabled David to move on and live again.

Similarly Moses, who had done astonishing things, was challenged by Korah and his sons. Instead of defending himself, Moses turned to God, surrendered his rights and submitted the issue to divine counsel. When the disputing parties met again, God made His own position very clear by causing the earth to open up and swallow Korah and his family. God, not Moses, saw that justice was done.

Recently we watched the wonderful Spielberg movie, The Lovely Bones, which portrays the abduction and murder of a teenage girl. She is then caught between heaven and earth, unable to move on. Likewise her father, thanks to his deep love for her, is unable to let go and live again for lack of closure. The two characters, though separated by a large chasm of reality, stay bound to each other as the wheels of justice grind along with little or no progress in the prosecution of her murder. Her body is never found, so the serial killer then starts plotting his next attack, assured that the trail on his previous deed is fading.

In the process, the father is alienated from his wife, whilst the girl discovers a whole group of girls, all victims of the same perpetrator, who are as unable to move on for lack of justice. The father subsequently gets into deeper trouble and suffers a near fatal incident, whilst his surviving daughter almost becomes the killer's next victim. It occurs to the dead girl that unless she lets go and releases her family, they will continue to be victims. Thus she chooses to move on, as does her father, which brings the story to a climax. Without sharing what happens, suffice to say, God causes the guilty to fall on his own sword. In the final scene the girl influences an outcome that brings release to all the girls with her and to her family below.

Yesterday a family in the Negev shared a scripture with me, from Psalm 69:32, which says, "The humble see, and thus rejoice they who seek God ... that hearts may live (again)." By way of commentary they made the point that the humble can only look up. The proud tend to look down, but the humble always look up.

So, if you find yourself caught up in circumstances that seem unjust, trust God to vindicate you. David actually prayed those very words in Psalm 17, as he looked to God for justice. Don't take matters into your own hands as you will almost certainly compound your crisis. Submit to God and let Him resolve the pain and solve your riddles, for in due course He will bring closure to your crisis. Look up to Him. Don't look down at the problems or whoever you believe to be the cause of your problems, as that will keep you locked in a vicious cycle of crisis that will just carry on spiraling downhill and so reduce you to a perpetual victim.

Don't look at your circumstances, else the waves will overwhelm you. Rather look up and walk on the waters. Again I say, look up, for your redemption is at hand.

Image source: http://www.findingfineart.com/members/1518539/uploaded/Kalwitz-WalkonWater.jpg

In the living years: settling accounts whilst we can so we leave with peace

2010-07-25T06:13:00.000-07:00

In the beautiful movie, "The blind side", Lee Ann Touhy bemoans the fact that Michael, her adopted, black giant of a son, so struggles to remember his school work. Her husband then interrupts to say what will stay with me forever: "Michael's greatest gft is forgetting". After years of being rejected, forced to forage for food, facing cold and lonely nights or walking in the rain, Michael learnt to forget, let go and move on.

Today my own father told me of the reasons he wants to die and go. I told him stuff I can't fully share here, except to say that there are many outstanding accounts in his life. I urged him to call in each of his children, to forgve them and secure their forgiveness - as an act of release.

I made the point that maybe the only real reason why old people are subjected to sad, empty twilight years, is to give them a chance to reflect on their lives before its too late. I also observed that the very things that are getting him down are merely a mirror to his own soul: such is the reflection that God brings to us as the grey shafts of evening filter in through the windows of our hearts. Indeed, our biggest offences will be reflected in one or more of our children - it has always and will always be that way, which is why I first take such offences back to God and pray that God first forgives and releases me so that my children may be free (of my offences and the sins of their fathers).

So now my Dad wants to go, but what is haunting him is the very thing that keeps him from the great moment of release that God intended the grave to be. It is true of us too ... in our living years. God sends issues to us to expose and resolve the unresolved issues that need to be resolved - and it won't go away until we get the victory. When my mom was in a similar state she clung to life for ages, until my Dad sent her a letter of forgiveness and release - she was gone within 24 hours.

For my Dad to really escape the prison of age and the limitations that hang over him, he needs to make a choice to escape long before they carry him out. The only way he can do that is to finally get mastery over the things that have always troubled him. Until he forgives, forgets and lets go, and until he find forgiveness so that others may find release, he will find his closing days increasingly gloomy. But if he chooses now to turn his sorrow into dancing and his mourning into dancing ... he will hear the voice of angels echo through his prison walls, long before he hears the jangle of the keys or the fall of the scythe.

As for you and me ... well can only I pray that we will never let it come to such a sad conclusion. God is speaking into your life and wants you to get victory over the issues that have always haunted you. The cross made adequate provision for your release and forgiveness, but there never was a better time to define the rest of your life, than right now. Let today be the first day of the first month of the rest of your days. Enough of ends, be they yet so sad, 'tis time to start again, to live and love and be what God wanted us to be.

Poem: Time only time - its all we have, our greatest and most underrated resource

2010-07-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

By silver light, the watchman

walks on shadowed walls,

until the night’s last stand

heralds the waking morn.

A sigh goes up, how long

‘ere the break of day,

when all the trees by song,

shall dance to gilded ray?

Soon, he shouts, very soon,
the golden orb shall breech:
for methinks its overdue -
so be gone, blackness, flee.

But then inquires another
“by what means can you tell -
or can this day be summoned
as flows the village well?”

What man could bid the day,
or by the hour the sun?
His light though soon or late
plumbs the line of time.

Raised wrists n’er defined
nor moved the hand divine,
what heav’n alone decides
that now, at last, its time …

.. for by the same decree
grey seasons come to pass,
so fade the stars that lead,
until day dawns, at last …

… to resurrect, by sure degrees
let none say can or can’t,
what God alone decrees -
this day be thus advanced

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net

The book of Eli - do we own the Word of God or is it written on our hearts?

2010-07-17T02:18:00.000-07:00

Denzel Washingon's portrayal of Eli in the Book of Eli, is a dark, apocalyptic movie. I can't say I enjoyed it much, because the violence was quite gratuitous.

What a pity to give such a great idea the Hollywood treatment, which generally translates into: if its a disaster make it in NYC (by now it should be the worst place on earth to live), if its got any romance in it, it must reduce to a sex scene (that must be a directorial interpretation of love. They even dare to call it lovemaking, which it isn't, its just plain sex) and if its a family movie where four-letter words are inappropriate then revert to some Oh my God's or maybe some blasphemy.

I am not convinced that any of that sells movies - it reflects the soul of the movie maker, not the soul of the audience. I have watched aspects of Idols and saw the soul of America reflected in the voting, convincing me that a lot of Americans remain conservative and God-fearing.

Accordingly, I must question whether any of the aforesaid techniques reflect audience interests. They rarely enhance the movie and almost always detract from the soul of the story.

Anyway, regarding Eli, at least I can say that the movie has a good moral. Eli carries a book that later proves to be a decoy - it is well bound, looks like a bible, but has no printed text inside. That is analogous to the sad reality that for so many homes, ornately bound, family bibles are often simply dust collectors. They may be full of truth but empty of revelation and devoid of impact. How sad.

The darkest character of the movie, Carnegie, sees real power in the book, for it he knows that it can be used in the way it was never meant to be used, but has in any case been used - to darken the minds of the masses and control the people. What a sad alternative use of such a profound anthology of insight, enlightenment and wisdom. Yet in many cases it was religion who so misused it.

That brings Eli to the fore, who emerges as the real book. Having memorized every verse and chapter of the world's last remaining King James bible, his pursuers claim the physical book and miss the whole point - that the word of God is words and counsel, not a relic of antiquity.

Even then, the point is lost, because the remnants of a museum on the west coast, whilst so very interested in recovering the bible and putting it back into pring, choose to cynically file it in their library alongside the Koran and other religious works.

That brings me to the only character capable of doing real justice to that great book - the audience. For it is not in owning it or having it on our shelves or even being capable of reciting it from memory that the power of the word is released - it is only when the Holy Spirit writes truth and a divine interpretation of every nuance and facet of the word in the human heart, that the word becomes the Living Word.

The New Covenant promises to write the word on our hearts so that none need teach us. For God is committed to showing us the way - so much for the presumptuous posture of the clergy of history. The word of God is accessible to all men and confounds the wise, because it is a living, breathing wonder. It is indwelt by the spirit of God. If the tree in the garden was the Pandora's box that unleashed the dark reality of sin, then the Word of God is the wellspring that releases the life and mystery of God to all people.

Poem: Starting again - to the end of every season, comes a new beginning

2010-07-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

To every brokenness

of our personal hells,

each empty soul ends,

what started so well.

The naked cry of souls,

in search of covering,

to make the broken whole -

is a long road, unending.

Until our searching finds,

the approval of His love,

to firmly set in sound mind

the eye that looks above.

The closure of approval

heals each open wound,

bending levers of evil

to the fulcrum of His will.

Until, in turning they find,

the path that leads home.

But, though our ways wind,

we will never walk alone.

Seasons come and go - does God orbit our lives or do we orbit His?

2010-07-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

The comings and going of seasons are never because the sun moves, but because we move around a fixed sun. So much for the science lesson – I am sure you knew it was always that way, even if the dark ages had the sun dancing around our insignificant orb.

The principle is as true of our relationship with God. We move into and out of seasons, but God never moves. He is the independent variable of this universe. The picture of a divine constant is also seen in heaven, where the glory of God is its eternal light.

The point here is potentially as radical as the moment when the inquisition finally buckled under the compelling evidence of Galileo’s heliocentric universe model.

I have spent years in churches listening to people deeply imploring God to “come and be with us”, or “visit this place or that meeting” – as though that is what God does. It just is not so. He never, ever moves. He is an absolute standard and we, through Christ, move toward and become reconciled to Him, not the other way around.

As any human standing on the face of the earth has observed, we rotate into and out of the sun’s rays, but the sun stays where it has always been. Similarly, our journeys in Christ bring us closer to and at times pull us away from, the constant presence of God. Whether by force of daily routines or adversity, we move in and out of fellowship with God, for as Jesus confirmed, “the sheep go in and come out and find pasture”.

It is so futile to implore God to come down and be with us, when He has made a new and living way for us to be where He is. We are even seated with Him in heavenly places.

The crux of this argument relates to our life seasons. Sometimes life has its virtues and other times it is a grind. That is as true of trees and plants. The sunlight fades, winter chills blow in, days shorten and nights lengthen: inducing trees to shed leaves and prepare for winter. Inexorably the warmth returns, to clothe the trees in bridal blooms and glorious greens, in anticipation of their destined moment of fruitfulness.

At the heart of this observation is a point that I have battled to grasp. The trees do not toil and sweat to reclaim their glory, they merely respond to the warmth of the returning sun and so become what they were destined to be. The path to recovery from your own wintry seasons of crisis, will likewise reflect our response to the energy, life and vitality that God pours into us as we move back towards Him. He appoints all times and seasons, so when the time is right, you will revive … without sweat or toil, because the light and glory of God will clothe you again and bring you to fruitfulness.

If you do not faint or pull back in the tough times, you will feel the subtle changes that mark the returning sun – and once it starts it will not stop until it is fulfilled.

Flying the meatball to find the sweet spot of God

2010-06-30T04:14:00.000-07:00

One of the most demanding skills around involves landing a high powered jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier. With only 500 feet of landing space on a surface that often heaves on the sea, it is a very dangerous activity.

There are all kinds of support systems, including approach guidance systems, flight deck communications and a triple arrestor system that is used to snag the plane’s arrestor hook and bring it to a safe, albeit quick stop.

One of the systems used is the long range line-up system or Lens, which uses a number of green, orange and red Fresnel lights supported by a gyroscopically stabilised platform. If a jet has the right angle of approach, the pilot will see what is called, “The meatball” – the amber lights in line with a row of green lights. If coming in too high, the green lights will be above the orange lights. Too low and the pilot will see red light.

Thus, a final approach is generally dubbed as “flying the meatball”.

In one of my books I describe how a spacecraft returning from space also faces the challenge of an ideal glide slope. If it comes in too steep it will burn out, but if comes in too shallow it will bounce back into the abyss of space.

That is analogous of what I call the sweet spot of God. Spiritual immaturity is often too steep, full of unguided enthusiasm and energy that burns out quite quickly. We have all faced such reality checks, where our presumptions clatter into the immoveable presence of a great father. The resulting comeuppance is vital to adjusting our boundaries and our approach, the way that a child’s stumbles and falls slowly lend to skilfulness.

Sadly, many then pull back so much that they have little or no commitment. They then bounce out – ending up in a meaningless orbit that forever skirts a deeper walk with God, resulting in many regrets over “what might have been”.

The same model applies to our spiritual meatball. Too many come at their life issues, challenges and decisions with an angle of attack that predicts a serious crash. We don’t inquire of God or stand still to hear His voice, resulting in serious navigational flaws that must eventually fail us. But others are so cautious in their approach that they run out fuel and stamina long before they can ever land.

F B Meyer was on the deck of ship in a stormy sea and inquired how the crew could know when their harbour approach was safe. The captain pointed to a row of three red lights and said, “When we can see all three lights, we are on target”.

That brings me to the rub – if you want to find the sweet spot of God, get your lights properly lined up. Ensure that your decisions are based on the circumstantial leading of God, confirmed by scripture and sealed by His inner voice. Don’t pull back when He does lead you into a new challenge, else you will regret the consequences and bounce away from God-given opportunities, but don’t be rash and impulsive either or you will burn out and blow your chances.

Where do we stand?

2010-06-18T00:44:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest causes for human crisis results from misrepresentations of God. The dark ages marked a significant eon of human crisis driven by ignorance about God and His heart for humanity. Fear of the unknown reduced all unknowns to the devil’s work which enslaved humanity to ignorance, suspicion, superstition, fear and all the more obvious consequences of that age: dungeons, death and disease.

Aside from many other obvious social deviations, we each have our own personal misconceptions of God. It all reminds me of a little Church Mouse cartoon, which shows a mouse saying “Lord, just look at what is now available in the Internet”, to which a voice in heaven replies, “I’d rather not”.

Okay, enough of the more patently negative aspects of human attitudes to God. To me it is more tragic that believers are getting into trouble because of their misconceptions.

I have seen too many slam into brick walls naively believing that God has led them into this or that. They spiritualize mere feelings and amplify the softest nuances into conceptualizations of God, but never stop to blame their golden calves when it all goes wrong. In essence they end up tempting God and then wonder why God opts out.

Others live their lives to their own rules, following their own instincts with barely any reference to God, the bible or sound counsel and then wonder why their marriages, homes, finances, businesses and other contexts are in a mess. They forget a fundamental rule: The Lord is God, and there is none beside Him.

Then there are those whose lives are more subtly outlived. They apply the word of God selectively, to vindicate all kinds of deviations, thus defying the principle that we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

More tragic, for me, is the number of really meaningful souls who are in trouble, not because they defy God or follow Him in error, but because they just don’t grasp their spiritual position. I am certainly in that camp at the moment, although all the previous mentioned errors applied to me at one stage or another in my life. Yesterday I cried to God for a deliverance that has so long eluded me, until I sensed the still, small voice of God saying, “Why do you reduce my objective will and the historic facts of the cross to a subjective exercise? Why don’t you just live in what I have done? It can’t be taken from you, but whatever my Son did for you will only extend to theory until you grasp that He died to set you free and give you victory over sin. That is your heritage, so live in it.”

God means no harm in our lives and has given us all that pertains to life and Godliness. It is up to us to decide how we outwork and appropriate such truth, but we will never rise above the human condition until we shift our positions and walk in the light.

Experience builds hope

2010-06-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

In Romans 5, Paul contends that Hope is a product of experience. His contention brings a very practical angle to an otherwise spiritual debate. Believers are very good at over-spiritualizing life. That alludes to a branch of logic in psychology called paranoid-schizoid defenses that describes how the mind develops internal bulwarks against threats.

Splitting … involves a process of simply dividing the world into two and identifying the more attractive world as friendly, thus reducing everything else to a wrong or a threat. It sadly erodes all sense of hope, because it denies reality and inhibits real experience.

There is a third way in all binary debates – good may exist, bad also exists, but it is always better to find out for yourself and then form an opinion or view based on real experience. Such experiences reshape our perspectives and help us to move from a threatening, denialist posture to an engaging, hopeful lifestyle – based on experience.

Projection – is a process whereby we externalize our threats and give those threats a face. A woman with a troubled background may link everything bad to a male face, a process that will rob her of a fulfilling life. Somehow she will need to remove the haunting mask of a past tormentor and find out for herself what lies beyond. It would be sad if her fears were reinforced, but we all unconsciously gravitate to experiences that reinforce our prejudices, so it will take a lot of courage to shatter our death masks and step into a new reality – the experience will bring hope that there are other good experiences out there.

Denial – is implied in the other defensive tactics, but manifests in a deliberate avoidance of anything that could reframe prejudices. Denialists tend to avoid news or views that explore alternative views. Instead it reinforces surrounding walls by simply shutting out the light and closing the windows of the soul. But a soul that opens up and dares to go outside, will always find that 99% of our fears are ill-founded. We generally have nothing to fear as much as fear itself, but in opening up we will allow our experiences to shift and confirm the merits of an alternative perspective, resulting in hope.

Paul was saying that experience of God brings hope. In spite of many negative experiences and times when we have had to patiently wait for His deliverance, He always comes through. He never forsakes us. He always fulfills His promises. Enough experiences of His provisions, for all their subtleties, will give us hope in whatever new crises we face in the future.

Now we get to Paul’s logic chain. He argues that hardship works patience: the patience to persist through our crises until we come out the other side and the patience to trust God through the long and lonely nights. That patience is always and will always be rewarded with a positive experience and that in turn will build faith and hope. It is that logical. If you expect the worst of God, then like Israel of old you will only ever see a desert, but if you look out for the best and build on His faithfulness, you will see wells in the desert.

Image source: www.hevallo.blogspot.com

Work in progress

2010-06-07T03:31:00.000-07:00

Wendell Phillips said, “Every step of progress the world has made has been from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake”. Of course there is a double meaning, for our world as we know it was as much formed on the scaffold of the stone-mason as on the scaffolds where truth died to spare the lies of thrones. Our own lives are also under the scaffold, an incomplete work whose time must surely come.

Many years ago I lay on the floor of the Sistine chapel to admire Michelangelo’s profound adornment of the ceiling. At the time the last supper was under renovation, masked behind scaffolding and workers sheets. For all the wonder of that equally famous painting, I was denied something of its true greatness.

At the time many other great buildings across Europe were undergoing renovations, so I found similar scenes of scaffolding and workers tools in a number of cities. Right now my own part of the world is facing similar refurbishment, so many of our buildings and other public places are encased in their own frameworks of scaffolding.

When God starts to work intensely with you, He also puts up scaffolding around you. He hems you in and restrains all progress, so you can stand still long enough for Him to reach your heart and renew your mind. That always leads to painful contradictions, where we just cannot seem to move on, for all the trying. Wave after wave of setback and disappointment will typically break over our lives and the winds of life will strip our branches to leave us standing naked in confusion and uncertainty.

It may take months, years, even decades for Him to chisel away the grime of sin and equip us for our regal purpose, for He is a master-craftsman. He will not skimp or shortcut the process until He has completely uprooted all that inhibits your potential. When He is done, and only when He is done, He will tear down the restraints, fold away the sheets, collapse the scaffolding and release us to take our rightful place – out in the sun, in open view of all who pass by.

I daily come across people in various states of crisis and the patterns are all so similar. I thank God for such patterns, as they enable the past to speak so relevantly to our present. Lives like Abraham, Jacob, Sarah, Ruth, Moses and Paul, all faced long journeys and years of scaffolding before God released them to become history makers and those great souls still make sense today, because nothing is new under the sun.

God’s intent is to bless you and not harm you. His plans for you are good. We have to believe that. One of the reasons Jesus walked on water and would not be made a king nor cast off a hill was because He found a place of perfect peace in the Father’s will. There is room enough for you there too, but you need to let Him finish what He is doing so that you can emerge as one set free to be what He destined you to be – then you too will make history.

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net

Rebuilding the walls

2010-05-31T00:15:00.000-07:00

Darius’ decreed that Nehemiah should start restoring Jerusalem, became a significant prophetic marker, because the moment meant so much to God. Nehemiah enjoyed the favor, blessing and authority of God – a very important consideration, given that the same authority had sent once sent His people into captivity, some 70 years earlier.

Thus the Jewish Diaspora came full circle. They had been exiled for as many years as the Sabbath years that they had once dishonored, but with Darius’ decree the matter was closed and God moved on.

However, Sanbalat resented the Jews and did all he could to stop their recovery. Although Nehemiah had authority to take wood from the king’s forest and to quarry for stone, Sanbalat would have none of it. Guess who he characterizes?

So Nehemiah made rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, his priority. He knew that as long as they were exposed to Sanbalat, all other efforts would be fruitless. They were so single-minded about their approach that they built with their swords by their sides, ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

The story is analogous to our own human struggles. We also neglect truth and end up in exile. We are also taken captive by life and dragged off to work the thankless systems of this world. Yet when God redeems, He gives us the vital authority to rebuild our lives.

That rebuilding process will have its gainsayers. You will face detractors, often for no other reason than that your own progress highlights their crises. That is why you get tall poppy syndromes in various cultures – people are generally happier when you remain as dispossessed as they are, but they resent it when anyone rises above the average and starts to reclaim their lives, their dignity or their life purpose.

They say that there is only one thing worse than being spoken of, and that is not being spoken of – for indeed whenever we advance to recovery we will be spoken of, we will face our opposition. Satan works through others to keep us down and will put up a fight when we don’t comply.

So our strategy is not to start building outwards, until we have built upwards. We have to build the walls first. That implies a need to assert our divine position: a vital appropriation of your authority expressed through daily confessions of our rights of way and the favor of God over our lives.

As you resist the Devil, your walls will rise, your defenses will become sure and you will move to a state of relative rest - not behind insular walls, but walls of purpose and dignity. You will never be fully at rest, but the idea of being able to post a reasonable guard at the gates of your life, your home and your family, so you can redirect your resources into tilling the earth and building a future – is very desirable.

So, if you have faced crisis but feel you are headed towards recovery, stand your ground and see it through until your walls provide enough refuge for you to extend your life into other avenues of expression.

(c) Peter Eleazar @ http://www.4u2live.net/
Image courtesy of: http://thechurchofjesuschrist.us/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/ba5.jpg

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Naked before God

2010-05-20T01:04:00.000-07:00

I knew a man who had the privilege of meeting Richard Branson. He had a great idea and Branson was interested. A helicopter took him to Branson’s island, where he disembarked with a studied look, his laptop on his arm and determination in his heart.

He was led to a room where Branson sat in a large Turkish bath, sans any clothes. My friend was taken aback, but Branson was unmoved. Clearly the laptop would never do in the bath and yet it was clear that no meeting would happen unless they both shared the bath, to “break bread” as it were. So my friend took the plunge, stripped off and joined Branson in the bath. Then they talked man to man about his idea.

Branson cared little about the technical brilliance of his presentation, but did want to see if they could be real and open. I suppose he felt that if my friend could not be vulnerable it was not worth doing business with him.

How often do we approach God’s throne with our own pretensions and assumptions. We expect Him to receive us on the basis of our credentials, references, religion, commitments, works, achievements, connections, knowledge or whatever. And we expect Him to receive us in spite of all He did for us. He accepts us, make no mistake, but not on our pretences. As long as we approach Him by any other way, we will never connect.

Our righteousness is filthy rags before Him. But here is another more salient issue – the effort it takes to keep up our pretences and our contrivances is the real weight that weighs down every soul. It hampers us and is the most exploitable lever in our lives.

Theologically, one wonders whether Adam and Eve were rejected because of their sin, or because of their shame. Whatever, I do know that what keeps us from God is not our sin – the cross resolved that. We may perceive that God rejects us, because we cannot forgive ourselves or cast off our fig leaves. We may feel naked without our fig leaves, even if they have the bulky weight and associated debt burdens of a car, a house, symbols, assets and qualifications that are redundant by the time we leave college.

If you want a truly cathartic experience, allow God to lead you a place where you can stand freely naked before Him (metaphorically or literally naked). Don’t be weird, there is enough weirdness is this world and it is often as pretentious as what less weird people use to cover their nakedness. Don’t be arrogant, that would present you as vulgar to God, one boasting in the flesh – there is enough of that too. But allow God to humble you to a true heart-to-heart connectedness, where you reduce yourself to what you really are – absolutely nothing. Then let Him clothe you in His garments of praise and righteousness.

If you let Him lead you into it, you will discover a lightness of being that is probably very close to the light linen that we will wear in heaven. It is so light it leaves us feeling naked, yet it is so adequate we will never again be vulnerable in His presence or in the presence of others, nor will we go cold into the night.

Small beginnings, great outcomes

2010-05-17T01:49:00.000-07:00

As has become a pattern in my life, I am surrounded by people in various stages of crisis. Maybe my own years of crisis were meant to equip me, but that might imply that God imposed crisis on me. Sadly, I have to say that I was the common denominator in every crisis. It was me that had to change and keep changing until my heart knit with His and my mind transformed.

Rick Warren, a most respected teacher, stated yesterday that in all crisis we must choose whether to groan or praise. I have to say that there is a third way. Praise can be denialist and Elizabeth Kubler Ross cautioned that crisis does indeed provoke denial. Of course I advocate praise, I must do, but the bible emphasizes a walk of faith, which is far more reflective of the tearful petitions of the great psalmists.

A walk of faith does not preclude us from pain or crisis, it takes us through it. Faith is all, I say again all that God needs from us as He outworks His purposes in our lives. The weaknesses of our flesh excluded ua from direct participation in the covenant making process, but faith is our way of being an active cosignatory to that covenant.

Last December I got lost near our regular annual holiday destination. I was out walking at night, which I love to do. Unfortunately the streets were all cresent shaped, so once I took a wrong turn I moved further and further from home until I was completely lost, in a darkened, upmarket suburb, with not a soul on the streets. I had set off without my cellphone, believing it was a routine journey (we have similar misconceptions about our faith), so once I was lost I could not eliminate any wrong answers, ask the audience or call a friend - but I did pray.

When I looked up I saw the nameplate of the nearest house. It said, "Small beginnings". As I was in the middle of a significant life crisis, I related well to what God was miraculously showing me. Just then, a security guard came by and pointed me to the nearest traffic lights, which gave me the bearings I needed for my own small beginning. I then followed the thread I had, though everything seemed so unfamiliar in the dark - and so I made my way home.

I had been lost within a mile of home, a great metaphor for the lostness we all feel, whilst being so near to familiar reference points, friends, cultural anchors, our church community, and so on.

The reality of crisis is that it is so personal. No matter how well meaning my many counsellors were, and I love them for all their support, no one could understand the journey I had to face alone. Only God could make sense of it all - and with time He did. But all He required of me en route to my own breakthrough, was the faith to hold on to the end.

You can go to bible school, get a degree, study to show yourself approved, move in the right circles, walk on water - or whatever else it is we like to do, but nothing makes more compelling sense or brings deeper learnings, than to walk with God through crisis - that is where we truly find Him and that is where our ideals are transformed into realities.

Is God in the demolition business?

2010-05-11T01:29:00.000-07:00

So if God does have plans for our lives, plans to do us good and not harm us, why are so many in trouble. I have never seen as many believers in crisis as now. We are in an economic, relational, physical and emotional battlefield. Has God lost control? Many of those I speak to even say He is unusually silent in their lives right now? Has He led us into a wilderness to die there?

Well, let me say I am not a theorist. I have faced a series of life-class crises over the last twenty years, which led me to write on the subject of crisis. Right now my family is scraping the bottom of the barrel, wondering how we will see out the next few months. We may have lost much, but gained much more. As Paul said: “For me to die is gain and so I count all things but dross for the surpassing knowledge of Christ”.

Through those years I wrote and wrote and wrote, until God started making sense. One of the great lessons of that journey is that God is not in the demolition business, but in the restoration business. We are in crisis, not because God put us there but because we were born into it. Life anaesthetizes us and helps us to live in a pseudo reality, so we can survive. Yet, in truth, the distortion of reality works in Satan’s favor. As long as he can keep feeding us with distractions we will not confront the essence of our crisis.

Instead we clothe ourselves with inadequate fig leaves (some even have metallic BMW badges on, others look like houses and others yet have the outer guise of achievement). However, they still don’t cover the reality beneath. I have seen enough of life to know that even the most seemingly victorious and independent individuals have their own personal demons. No one is immune – sin it is that contagious.

So why does God keep silent about it all? Actually He is very vocal. We are just hard of hearing. Bette Midler sang, “God is watching from a distance”. She is half right – He lifted Himself above us all and watched, from a distance of a few feet, as he hung above a wretched world. He said little, but spoke much about our real crisis. It’s a crisis of the soul. The first crisis of Adam and Eve was self awareness – and it is with us today. Marketers exploit it, bankers love it, alcohol and drugs are attracted to it, sickness follows it, marriages fall becauseof it and the world is loveless as a result.

Sure God seems silent – because silence is His blackboard, but crisis is His megaphone to speak into our deaf worlds. He is there – He always was and always will be. We are just looking in the wrong places and missing Him for all our looking.

What on earth is God doing?

2010-05-10T00:54:00.000-07:00

I have watched crisis work its way through countless lives. Maybe my own crises have sensitised me to it. More recently I observed from afar how a whole city struggled through the collective crisis of a flood - I refer to the city of Nashville, Tennessee where a major storm front dumped over 15 inches of rain in 48 hours. The resulting flood devastated many parts of the city, especially more vulnerable wooden structures. Yet, reporting and human optimism minimised the crisis to the point where I naively considered it be just a major storm. The people of that city had chosen their own response to their crisis and opted to work it out through community.

I have watched families face parallel crises and respond quite differently. One of my life crises was recurring or parallel. The two crises hit me in different ways and my response was unique to each. In the first crisis I withdrew, in the second I displayed all the classic symptoms of crisis - anger, denial, etc. Don't let anyone ply you with patronising gestures about how you ought to process your own crises - we are all different and no two crises are the same, so we must face our own journey and manage our personal responses.

Many have argued that crisis is God's little way of shaping our characters and preparing us for something else. We assume that He has no interest in our comfort, only our character. I am not sure I see that anymore. I have found that He is generally more ready and willing to restore and redeem than I am ready to accept. He is a redemptive God and will find excuses to restore us. The problem is that our minds get in the way and distort our perspective of His heart, His grace and His promises.

He may allow crisis to hit us, but as C S Lewis said, it is His megaphone to speak into our dark worlds - hey we even allow similar crises to play out in our children's lives so that they can grow up. God does not induce crisis to make things worse, but to reveal how bad things really are. Marriages can stumble along in terrible ruts for years, even decades until a crisis drags the partners out of their tedium into reality, so that God can heal, not destroy. The same principle applies to our personal lives and how we allow such precious lives to lapse into tragic rhythms and ruts that preclude us from the greater purpose of God. That predicts an eventual crisis, for our mindsets and life learnings are just so befuddled by sin that we must inevitably face our own comeuppance - for our own sakes.

What I have come to see is that Jesus really did do enough for us, but the blessedness that He secured at the cross lies beyond the veil of reason - it represents a short distance, but a long journey, by which our minds are transformed until we can see Him as He is - the lover of our souls. He has not moved the prize away or changed our wages, we have merely fallen short of grace, but God will persist with us until we reach our promised rest.

2010-04-26T04:10:00.000-07:00

The Greater Fight

We grew to know, the value of the soul -
till tides flowed and hearts grew cold,
to a priceless trade for a hopeless place,
in the relegation stakes of a rodent race.

As for excalibur, each takes his turn,
Their souls burn, for fame and title yearn …
as thrones ascend and vanities descend
to flow then ebb, as tides recede again

‘Ere they triumph, they blow their trump,
then sadly slump. Dough turns to crumb
in the empty vanity of heart-filled vict’ry,
as hearts freeze and fires flicker, cease.

The sacred blade, to the cold stone clave,
as every knave marks the brevity of day
then souls dethroned drift like ghosts,
then walk alone in empty, haunted groves.

Till at last, recount, the value of the fount
that God decants from the sacred mount –
to all who strain, for the utmost gain
nor would stray, from His purposed way.

There to find, what mystic depths resound,
to thus confound, darkened states of mind …
then light the way, as all who heed, regain:
by last refrain, the saviour’s bloodied claim.

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net

Change perspectives to move on

2010-04-18T07:49:00.000-07:00

I was listening to a popular music group being interviewed on a radio station, when a young woman phoned into the studio to say that she also loved music and would like advice on how she could also become successful. Their advise was surprisingly relevant.

To a man, the band said "Stop Trying". Their advice was that success would come in its own time, if it were to come at all. Their own, rather mature approach for such young guys, was to simply enjoy what they were doing and to always strive to improve their music.

No one could ever take that from them. All the rejections in the world could not rob them of their simple objective. They kept their day jobs and laughed about their small bank balance, but otherwise just stuck to the simple idea of enjoying what they were doing.

It does seem to me that when we get desperate in trying to prove ourselves, we actually achieve the opposite result. The unemployed become unemployable because their vulnerability comes through in their actions and words, which simply reinforces rejection. But those who are already "happily" employed generally have enough options to approach job interviews with a degree of objective confidence - the more, the better. It seems then that the better we feel about ourselves, the better others will feel about us.

That brings me to a vital observation. Rejection is not what others do to us, but what we do to ourselves. A harbour never moves, but it may seem to have moved when a boat moves away from the wharf. But it is the boat that moves and if it moves back it will find the harbour is still there. It is the same with us - God never moves, nor do the fundamentals of life, but through circumstances and perceptions we move away, but in so moving away we perceive rejection. Indeed, the more we strive to change things, the more we dig ourselves into the miry clay of crisis.

It would be better to grasp something of what a confidently employed person does have - a sense of having options (we always have options), of having value to bring (we all have some value to bring to life), a sense of personal wholeness (our position in Christ is more important than our status in life) and contentment. That may seem easier said than done, yet the Apostle Paul actually came to same conclusion - he stopped striving and trusted God, for he had learnt to be content in all things. That made a way for him far more so than his earlier arrogance, bluster and high mindedness.

Ignorance compounds crisis

2010-04-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

In times of crisis, one of the greatest aggravators is ignorance. Because we do not even know or want to know we are in crisis, we end up compounding the original crisis. For its not how bad things are, but how we perceive them that defines both the impact of our crisis and how we will get through it.

Abraham Lincoln said of the American Civil War that the original causes of the war were long resolved, whilst secondary causes had provoked a longer-term conflict. The secondary causes exploited the original conflict to further the causes of third parties and so turn a basic conflict into a nasty and deadly war.

Flu is a routine ailment, affecting billions of souls each year. Most recover within days and move on, but many lapse into deeper illness. The truth is that flu does not kill, but secondary illnesses often do. Infection of the upper respiratory tract leads to high mucus buildup which is a cesspool of bacteria that happily and incentuously breeds away if allowed to. That is the only time antibiotics actually work, because the basic flu virus is immune to such interventions. Bacterial infections can lead to very serious complications, made all the worse by our ignorance about the right ways to use antibiotics.

Similarly, crisis rarely kills in and of itself. Indeed, most crisis is resolvable, but for various reasons basic issues compound and move rapidly down a number of wrong roads that take us further and further from a solution. One of the greatest causes for secondary infections is simple ignorance - people don't get indoors, stay warm or take basic health precautions, because they don't respect the virus that is attacking them or are simply naive about health issues - similar naivete causes simple crises to compound into major events.

Ignorance is not just about our response. Often it is more to do with acknowledgement of the issues. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross referred to denial as one of the stages of crisis and she was right - it is a major factor, although to me it is not really a milestone in crisis, it is a major cause for real crisis. The prodigal son was technically in a pigsty long before he started feeding pigs, but he had to sink that low before he could acknowledge his reality - God allows us to sink that far, not to make things worse, but to reveal how bad they really are. Sadly, our instinct for survival will intuitively dismiss it all or minimise the issues or compound the original problem, until we are so deep in it we cannot deny it any longer.

That turning point of acknowdgement led the prodigal back home - just as our own vulnerability will mark the turning point in our crises, for it is only then that we start to cry to God, call for help and take active measures to address the issues. Sadly, as many divorcees will testify, that often means too little, too late - although I firmly believe that anything is solveable if we have a will to change and faith to trust God.

The opinions of others do not define us

2010-04-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

My wife gets in a knot when people in her office talk about her. So I asked her, "who gave them the right to decide whether you make the cut or not?" She replied, "I did". Therein is the rub - we are so busy trying to please others, that we we never fulfil our divine purpose and thus never please God.

Jack Nicklaus, still arguably the greatest golfer of them all, would get irritated by weekend hackers. He noticed that they would play a bad shot then curse themselves as they persistently reminded themselves of their uselessness, whilst confirming the point ... all the way to the clubhouse. He got around it all by giving himself a quota of bad shots - then when he did play a bad shot he would tick it off his quota and say, "Jack you're not a bad player, you just played a bad shot."

I recently described a music band who advised those seeking success to stop trying so hard. Their simple secret was to play their own game, whilst simply enjoying their game. Success came, partly because in enjoying themselves they drew others to their music, but also because they simply played so much better when they were doing what they enjoyed doing most. How many of you do better when you try so hard to do what you don't want to do, simply to please others?

My son is currently struggling - he is being benched in his team and overlooked. The result is a pygmalion effect - because others have dismissed him, he is fulfilling their expectations and playing badly. I told him that even the very best players in his game, rugby, only achieve 4-5 tackles per match. Accordingly, like Nicklaus, I advised him to set his own par and decide from game to game how many telling tackles he could realistically make per game. That would give him a personal quota that he could play to without worrying about what people think. I also advised him to simply enjoy his game, citing many other players who found their own personal turning point in learning to play their own game.

Ultimately, we do allow others to decide whether we have made the cut, but I have found that people are far harsher judges of our souls than God is. So I urge you to allow the most redemptive heart of all to be the sole arbiter of your life - pleasing Him is rewarding enough in and of itself.

My question to you is - who are you living for?

Things are rarely as they seem to be

2010-04-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

The God of crisis

2010-04-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

It may seem controversial and unwarranted to call Him "the God of crisis", but I do so reverently - for although crisis is never pleasant, it is invitable. It may not be meant for our destruction, but it always hurts, yet in God's hands it will also work out well - every time.

Patterns of biblical history reflect a recurring challenge of status quos. Whenever God's people settled into bad cycles or destructive patterns He would allow things to run their course and then provoke or allow a crisis so that His people would change - for their own sakes.

When they were slaves in Egypt, He allowed that to run its full course before stirring up a confrontation between slave and slavemaster. That aggravated an already bad situation, but in reality it exposed their crisis for what it was. So, although they kicked against it initially, the thing that God was doing gathered momentum until the people bought in and fearfully turned to God for salvation - then He broke the yoke of Pharaoh and set them free.

When The Jews turned back to the wilderness, He left them there for forty years until they had outlived the legacy of their parents and were sufficiently uncomfortable to want to move on without moving backwards. Out of the resulting crisis came a new beginning.

Paul was cast into crisis in the midst of his blind persecution of believers. His resulting blindness and other setbacks gained his attention and provoked a change of direction in his life. The prodigal son also had to lapse into a pigsty until he was sufficiently uncomfortable to turn back home. Peter had to face his own personal heartaches before he changed from an idealistic, bombastic fisherman into a sober, passionate apostle.

I could go on, but suffice to say that I see people facing so much crisis in their daily lives. Almost always, an underlying concern emerges, something that needs to be resolved to bring their lives to their potential. A marriage can quickly slump into a long, dangerous rut unless something happens to provoke the two spouses to either change direction and heal or face up to an alternative reality. James Dobson had to deal with a heart attack before he was able to listen to God and change his own personal life course. Another common area of crisis is financial, a painful valley that inevitably brings real changes to values, life priorities and behaviors. We even bring little crises into our childrens' lives to provoke them to change.

God is not a settler, willing to allow us to settle into grim cycles of meaningless, sin and compromise - He will bring crisis, but with it He will also bring restoration to a new and meaningful life. God is redemptive - He will always seek ways to heal, but as the great physician He knows that healing may have to start with a painful operation of the heart. He hates the murky middle ground of mediocrity and will spit it out of His mouth, choosing either all or nothing over a bland and meaningless wilderness.

Our all in all

2008-04-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

We are limited, partly to ensure interdependency. But God is unlimited, embracing all our strengths.

The idea of conceptualizing God through genders, leads to some intriguing ideas.

Firstly let me say that this is not just an idea – I really do believe the genders portray the different poles of God’s mind, but unlike our human limitations, which are biased in one direction or the other, God’s mind reflects equal strengths for both poles and a divine balance between them. It is hard for us to be both Just and Merciful or to simultaneously wield the Rod and Staff. It is almost impossible for us to balance anger and mercy, whilst grace is ambiguous for many most custodians of truth.

Thus we have organized life into specializations. Many learned theologians have specialized in matters relating to truth, but aspects of grace often fall on the shoulders of less intellectual, shepherds. We also have specialist judges who can handle justice, but it takes a specialized advocate to plead for mercy.

In the midst of these complex abstractions is a balance between male and female. As a man I find it difficult to be associated with more feminine traits like romance, gentleness, tenderness and emotionalism. Hey I am generalizing to make the point, so please forgive any prejudice shown here. I, like most men, am quite conscious of my male identity and find it hard to even get physically or emotionally close to other guys. So my “specialization” is well developed – I am a guy, designed for male roles and male pursuits and I just don’t do “female” that well.

But God can transcend both genders in ways that we cannot begin to understand. To Him it is not a gender thing at all. We are gender-centric, because God has designed us to be mutually inter-dependent. We were designed to complement each other and balance roles, but God does not need any of that for He is self-regulating. Thus when He is angry, His own sense of grace restrains His hand and moderates His response without having a wife at His side to calm Him down. It is marvelous that God took this to its logical conclusion when He caused grace and truth to kiss in the common ground of the cross.

Well, if these things are so, is it possible that God has a capacity to love as a mother loves her children? He suggests it is so, saying “as a hen gathers her chicks so have I longed to gather you to myself” (a hen is female, by the way).

Men do not have the same capacity for love. I love my family dearly, but I belong to a gender that has a very high propensity for leaving – most single families are female led, suggesting that what is relatively easy for men to do, is very tough on women – love for their offspring is not merely a romantic idea or concept, it cuts to the very core of their beings. I suggest that in this way, God reveals something of His love for us.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Divine perspectives of God

2008-04-07T23:21:00.000-07:00

The Lord our God is one. Yet He is able to present Himself to us, in ways that we can all relate to.

If I were to even hint at a feminine side to God, I would be lynched by some, adored by others and despised by men. I speak from experience for I once suggested to a guy that men could learn something from women about taking directions or getting help: a discussion that appalled the poor fellow. Actually, I think genders could learn a lot from each other and I am certainly not ashamed to say that I have learnt a lot from women about raising my hand to ask for help when I am unsure of something – it saves a lot of dumb pain.

Gender identities are sensitive. Some fringe elements insist that God is female and the politically correct lobby would like to give Him a neutral identity, as though it is up to us to decide such things for Him. Such debates so tragically miss the point about the real issues at stake. It compares with trite debates about circumcision or where to worship God or whether the earth was made in seven calendar days.

I don’t believe there is gender in heaven, for Jesus implied that there is neither male nor female, nor even marriage, in glory (Matthew 22:30). Paul picked up on the same point when he said that in Christ there is neither male nor female, bond nor free and the term "sons of God" refers to all of God's children, not to males only.

Perhaps God is neither male nor female and we get all muddled because we are trying to portray divine concepts in human terms. I do, however, submit to the bible's portrayal of God, as male. I am not sure whether that is an interpretive or intentional thing, but either way I am not about to attempt any proof to the contrary.

What I do want to say is that generalisations of Male and Female predispositions, characterize key attributes of God.

There is a "more" male-like straightforward, factual, logical, matter-of-fact, unemotional, decisive side to God. Men relate better to that and women generally see it as a sign of His strength and authority.

But there is also a "more" women-like subtlety to God that is veiled in mystery. The mystique of women will keep the average man amused for a lifetime, but the mystique of God will keep us all intrigued for eternity. Other characteristics portrayed better by females are His tenderness, finesse, gentleness, loving-kindness, patience and aestheticism.

The bipolar nature of God (I have no doubt He has many dimensions, but there is a tendency in scripture to link two at a time), reveals the internal contrasts, hues and shades of His divine personality.

Thus, “Justice”, a no-nonsense, absolute concept, is coupled in scripture with “Mercy”, revealing a balanced capacity for forgiveness, kindness and profound mercy. In fact, this particular contradiction is a cornerstone of the cross, for the cross God resolved two competing values: He dealt uncompromisingly with sin and thereby imposed His justice, whilst using the same instrument of truth to reconcile us to Himself. That is enough to make me cry my heart out.

As for Justice and Mercy, so “Truth” is coupled with “Grace”. Truth is even more absolute than justice, for it is the foundation of justice. Truth is not a shade or a hue, it is a defined value, without any ambiguity. But Grace is ambiguous, one of the greatest of all contradictions.

Truth demands justice, but grace finds a way to provide mercy, strength and comfort in the face of justice. Grace is as much of God as is truth, but Grace is an ambiguous counter-point of unmerited favor: a principle that imposed an unfair judgment on Jesus so that we may be unfairly acquitted and reconciled to God in such a way that truth is never compromised.

Anger and Mercy are also coupled, for the Psalmist says “He is slow to anger and swift to show mercy”, revealing a tension between those two poles that is constantly self-adjusting to human behavior in order to temper the response of heaven. It means that God, so pure and complete in His own integrity, is self-regulating, able to execute justice whilst retraining Himself by other competing internal forces.

I have no doubt that these are amongst the things that have caused men and angels to worship Him, for He is beautiful beyond description, too marvelous for words, too wonderful for comprehension, like nothing ever seen or heard.

David spoke of the “Rod” and “Staff” that comforted Him. It is a contradiction for a shepherd to hold a rod and staff, but God is able to balance the need for correction and discipline against the equal need for nurturing and encouragement. That makes Him so special and accounts for a more recent shift in my own response to Him. I have always called the Father, “Father”, in a formal, deferent way. But now I have learnt to call Him "Abba", as Paul endorsed in Romans 8. That is a Semitic term for “Dad” or “Daddy”, but it conveys greater feeling and respect than the western term does – it suggests intimate respect.

So, God is not female (maybe He isn’t male either, but I cannot confirm that view from available scripture). But He is certainly capable of transcending the fine balance and peculiar differences of both genders, to ensure that we can all relate to His strength and compassion. I so thank God for that, for if the anger, justice and truth of this Great God had been unbridled, none of us would have survived His all-seeing gaze.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Quo Vadis

2008-04-01T03:42:00.000-07:00

We wanted kings instead of God and democracy instead of kings. Will it work when man rules as God?

It took two hundred years after Israel crossed the Jordan, before they felt that God was not enough anymore. They wanted a king, just like the nations around them had their respective kings, but in choosing a king they rejected God (1 Samuel 8:7).

The transition from theocracy to monarchy was a big constitutional change for ancient Israel. It came about partly because the people felt that the prevailing system wasn’t working, but it seems the fault lay with the people who insisted on doing their own thing. That would have persisted had God not raised judges to stop the rot and restore order.

So the system didn’t really fail the people as much as the people failed the system. The inherent willfulness, restlessness and greed of people not only corrupted that theocratic dispensation, it ultimately also corrupted the next, monarchic system.

Two hundred years was all it took to forget all that had brought them thus far. That is a brief moment in historic terms and many regard is as an aberration, a period of non-advancement. Yet it took about 250 years for the kingdom of Judah to fall and another 150 years before the last flame of the age of kings fluttered and died, as the remnant of Israel was led away into Babylonian exile.

Well, would you believe that current models of government have also been around for about two hundred years and now they are also failing? The French revolted about the same time as the US won its independence but the republics that they fought so hard to establish are now crying for another way, a new world order.

Over the last 200 years, passionate people laid the foundations of the new world and opened new frontiers. Science, art and technology also flourished, bringing great waves of progress. Everything seemed possible. Great wars also happened as ambitious nations wrestled for territory to stake their claims on a brave new world.

Yet almost as quickly as it came, the prevailing world order (democracy) also reached its zenith. Like all civilizations of history, we too have come to the climactic point of this age and find ourselves peering over an abyss of dark uncertainty.

A new world order is beckoning, but it is destined to be dark, oppressive and soulless: after all, what is left after having tried theocracy, monarchy, church-state models, imperialism, democracy, oligarchy (communism). We have the T-shirts to prove we have been there and done it all. But if no other system will bring order to the humankind, then all that is left is world “order” or “control”.

We have already thrown away our freedom and sold our souls to hedonism. Now, like Israel of old, we face exile to a world order that has all the instruments of oppressive control: satellite surveillance, biometric identity, converging world currencies and god-like big-brother controls. Indeed, the final system of government, the last world order will take history to its logical conclusion: for this all started when kings displaced God and it will end when man becomes god.
At the root of western corruption is a dangerous decline in moral values, values that once gave people and nations something worth fighting for. But that is all gone now.

Similar conditions were evident at the end of the Egyptian, Persian, Roman, Greek and British empires. For over half a century, Victoria presided over a morally-centered British empire, where the sun never set. But her death signaled a decline of greatness and a moral slide that was only briefly checked by World War 2. As Britain declined, America picked up the torch, holding it high for liberty and justice, proclaiming trust in God, an egalitarian constitution and a Christian world-view. But now that last great rampart of virtue has also followed the way of all flesh and compromised her heritage.

So even when we had our kings or, as happened in the great revolution, when we exceeded the monarchy with government by the people, we remained no better off. For the problems did not start with the kings, it started when men rejected God.

We lost our way when we abandoned our divine centre. Had we kept God at the heart of our culture, we would have censured bad government and order would have been more self-fulfilling, but now the world totters to and fro like a drunken man. No wonder the Psalmist noted: “Except the Lord build the house, they that labor, build in vain” or as another wrote, “The chief cornerstone has now become the stone of stumbling”.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

The Training Ground of God

2008-03-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

David learnt to be an effective leader and warrior of God as he struggled through the melee of life.

"Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle." - Psalm 144:1

David was a man skilled in war. From his days as a shepherd boy to the days of serving in Saul's army to leading his own army, David learned to be a skillful warrior. How does one become a skillful warrior?

The only way one can become a skillful warrior is to be trained and placed in the middle of the battle. It is only when we are placed in the furnace of battle that we truly learn to fight the real battles. Practice doesn't make you battle ready. War games won't prepare you for facing your real enemy in the battlefield. The stark reality of being in the midst of the battle makes us effective warriors.

Simply reading your Bible will not make you a warrior for the Kingdom.

Knowledge without experience is mere folly. Only when you are placed in situations where there is nothing or no one who can save you but God will you learn the lessons of warrior faith. This is the training ground of God, which will make you into a soldier for Christ in the workplace. Consider it to be suicidal faith - faith that says I want to be dead to anything that keeps me from fulfilling God's purposes for my life.

It is when your efforts can do nothing to change your circumstance and you are at the mercy of God. These are the real training grounds of God. Do not shrink back from the battle that God may be leading you to today. It may be a training ground that is necessary for the calling He has on your life.

If you can trust Him in these times, you'll know that you have gained a faith that will move mountains and will sustain you in the most difficult of circumstances.

"Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle."

Source: John Hall at http://www.pleasantplaces.co.za/

A refiner's fire

2008-03-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

Heat is used for all kinds of things. It refines, melts and molds things, like sin-hardened hearts.

"For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap." - Malachi 3:2b.

The Lord has a specific manner of preparing His people for useful service. God desires to turn His children from rough, hard-edged stones into gems of gold and silver.

"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years" (Malachi 3:3-4).

The refiner's fire can only accomplish its purposes when the heat is turned up to extraordinary temperatures. It breaks down the metal in order for it to become moldable and shapeable. Only when the temperatures reach this level can the work be fully accomplished. So it is in our lives.

Until the Lord completes His refining process, the offerings we make are not made in righteousness and cannot be acceptable. Thank God that Jesus is our righteousness and that there is no righteousness apart from Him. Still, the Lord continues to purge all that is not of His righteousness out of our lives. This comes through trials that bring each of us to the end of ourselves in order that He may only reflect that which is Himself.

When God takes you through the refiner's fire, be encouraged because it is His overriding commitment to turn you from a rough, hard-edged stone to a precious metal.

He will do this through certain events in your workplace, your relationships, and other circumstances in your life.
Our job is to avoid trying to blow out the fire.

Source: John Hall at www.pleasantplaces.co.za

Death and birth of vision

2008-03-20T08:06:00.000-07:00

Vision requires a death, for we must first die to ourselves, before we can be alive to His purpose.

”I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces seeds” - John 12:24.

Almost every significant thing God births, He allows to die before the vision is fulfilled in His own way.

Abraham had a vision of being the father of a great nation (birth). Sarah was barren and became too old to have children (death). God gave Abraham and Sarah a son in their old age. He became the father of a great nation (fulfillment).

Joseph had a vision that he would be a great leader and that many would bow down to him (birth). Joseph's brothers sold him to some merchants and he became a slave. Later he was falsely condemned to spend his years in prison (death). God allowed Joseph to interpret the dreams of the butler and baker and later the king, whereupon, he was made a ruler in the land (fulfillment).

Moses had a vision of leading his people out of the bondage of Egypt (birth). Pharaoh as well as his own people drove Moses out of Egypt after Moses' first attempt to relieve their bondage (death). God gave Moses signs and wonders to convince Pharaoh to free the people and bring them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land (fulfillment).

The disciples had a vision of establishing the Kingdom of God with Jesus (birth). The very ones He came to save killed Jesus, and the disciples saw Him buried in a tomb (death). God raised Jesus from the dead, and the disciples performed great miracles until the gospel had spread through the entire world (fulfillment).

A grain of wheat has a "vision" of reproducing itself and many more grains of wheat (birth). The grain dies in the ground (death). A harvest springs up out of the very process of "death" in the ground (fulfillment).

Has God given you a vision that is yet unfulfilled? If that vision is born of God, He will raise it up in His own way.

Do not try to raise the vision in your own strength. Like Moses, who tried to fulfill the vision of freeing the Hebrews by killing the Egyptian, it will only fail. But wait on your heavenly Father to fulfill the vision. Then you will know that it was His vision when He fulfills it in the way only He can do.

Source: John Hall at www.pleasantplaces.co.za

It is finished

2008-03-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

A poem relating to Easter and the remembrance of a suffering servant, nailed to a cruel Roman cross.

A bared skull
with jagged spikes
where death's hill
darks the night.
Starkly bared
against the sky
yet no one cared
they just went by.

A sound of dogs
bayed bloody moon
as heartless thugs
danced the gloom.
A heaving sigh
cut the night
to end His life
and seal His plight

Te-te-les-te
“It is finished”
so sealed the day
that vanquished
sin, hell and grave
as too the keys
till every slave
is thus set free.

The earth shook
the temple heaved
and the veil broke
as hell was breeched.
But see He comes
through the gloom:
The Victor’s crown -
the loser’s doom.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Confidence in numbers

2008-03-14T05:09:00.000-07:00

Wherever we go in life, there is a tendency to turn life to a number game: it seems size does count.

"David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, 'I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O Lord, I beg You, take away the guilt of Your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.'" - 2 Samuel 24:10.

It just seems to be human nature. As we grow in wealth and ability, our confidence moves from complete trust in the Lord to trust in our resources. King David decided one day that he needed to know how many fighting men he had in his army. This was a grievous sin in the nation of Israel. God always made it clear to the nation that He, not their army, was their source. It was against the law of God to number the troops. David's general, Joab, knew the serious nature of such an action.

But Joab replied to the king, "May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?" (2 Samuel 24:3).

Joab knew that David was treading in dangerous waters when he brought up the idea to him. But David had it in his mind that this is what he was going to do. And he did. The result: God judged David for this sin by smiting the nation with a plague that resulted in the loss of 70,000 lives.

Recently, I was having lunch with a former stockbroker who lost everything in the 1987 stock crash in the United States. He made an interesting comment. "You cannot know how to fully trust the Lord in the financial area until you really have to. When I lost everything, I was forced to trust Him when I knew I could not pay my next bill unless God provided. This was the time I learned to trust God. I never had to trust God before I lost my money because I had plenty. We don't willingly enter this level of trust with God."

Ask God today to keep you from trusting in your own resources. Ask Him how to balance trust and blessing from Him this day.

Source: John Hall at http://www.pleasantplaces.co.za/

Striving versus abiding

2008-03-09T08:11:00.000-07:00

We all appreciate sweat, and striving for supremacy. But abiding puts reliance on the power of God.

"Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain." - Psalm 127:1a.

What does it mean for the Lord to build the house? It almost seems a contradiction when we consider that we might be the builders in this passage. God wants us to allow Him to build the house. He explains further:

"Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - for He grants sleep to those He loves" (Psalm 127:1-2).
God is telling us there is a way of working without striving. There is a way to conduct business without sweating and toiling for outcome. His warning to each of us is to avoid thinking that outcome is based on our sweat and toil. Outcome is based on obedience. That outcome is sometimes more than we deserve. Sometimes it is less than we hoped for. His desire for each of us is to see Him working in our daily work life. He wants us to avoid looking to our own effort to gain an outcome.

One day Jesus called out to Peter from the shore of the lake and suggested he throw his net on the other side of the boat. It was this simple act of obedience that yielded a tremendous catch that he would not have received unless he obeyed.

We are called to work; He is called to bring forth the fruit. He is the vine. We are the branches. Fruit comes forth naturally from a healthy tree.

Today, ask God to show you when you enter into striving. Ask Him to show you the difference between loving trust and obedience and striving for outcome. It can be challenging for us to balance this in our daily work experience. He wants to help us walk in this freedom and rest.

Source: John Hall at www.pleasantplaces.co.za

Faith vs presumption

2008-03-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

David called presumption a sin, because that is what it is, even when it looks and feels like faith.

"So she said to Abram, 'The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.' Abram agreed to what Sarai said." - Genesis 16:2

Presumption is based on our own reasoning. Abraham and Sarah fell into presumption when they got too old to have children. God had promised a son to Abraham and Sarah - a son who would fulfill His promise to birth a nation. But Abraham and Sarah were past the normal age for childbearing. So, they concluded that God needed help to work out His plan.

Many workplace believers make the same mistake every day. We make assumptions about what we believe God is doing and wants us to do. However, before we really have full assurance that God has spoken to us on the matter and revealed His perfect action plan, we move forward with our steps to get it done. How do we protect ourselves from presumption? The Proverbs tell us that there is safety in a multitude of counselors (see Prov. 11:14 KJV).

Submitting our decisions to others for confirmation protects each of us from the deceit of our own heart. This process will protect us from presumption and encourage us to move in faith. The next time you believe God is directing you toward a specific action, consult with your spouse first, then some close, spiritual friends who will take the time to prayerfully consider your request. If you don't have consensus, wait until you do before you move forward. God will move through this process to His desired will for the matter.

Source: John Hall at www.pleasantplaces.co.za

One person can make a difference.

2008-03-07T00:44:00.000-08:00

In a world of corruption and decay, can an individual make a real difference and triumph over evil?

Hezekiah was a young King, only twenty five years old, when he assumed the throne in place of the evil Ahaz, his father. He ruled for 29years, from 724 to 695bc. during one of the greatest periods of human history, a time that coincided with the birth of Rome (753bc) and the Greek first Olympiad (776bc).

Hezekiah’s world was in a state of flux. Assyria was in decline from its totalitarian heights, when they plundered the world as few other world powers ever did. They were vicious and terribly cruel, but they also dealt with recalcitrant vassal states by dividing their populations and redistributing them amongst other far off nations, whilst filling the voids with people deported from conquered territories. The Assyrians turned the near and middle east into a cultural melting pot, but they also wiped out the northern kingdom of Israel.

Other global events were also shaping the world stage. Egypt was strong again and on the ascendancy, but Persia was destined to be the next major world power. Indeed Persia would become the first true world power, duly recognized by a divine vision given to their King Nebuchadnezzar, as interpreted by Daniel. Persia preceded the Medo-Persian empire, the Greeks and then the Romans, ultimately laying the foundation for a final one-world, anti-Christ empire, which will bring a climax to the mystery of Babylon.

It is against this backdrop that Isaiah prophesied the birth of Hezekiah, using the prophetic undertones of his celebrated “virgin-birth prophecy”, when he declared to Ahaz: Behold the Lord will give you a sign: A virgin will give birth to a son and you shall call Him Immanuel.” The prophecy also confirmed the destruction of Israel by Assyria.

Hezekiah was initially a somewhat reluctant leader, but when his father failed, he rose to prominence. He finally came to a full conviction about the divinity of the God of Israel, resulting in the restoration of the temple (which his father had neglected), the uprooting of all pagan high places in Judah and the forced resettlement of the plundered Nortehrn Kingdom of Israel.

He was a bit misguided in his responses to the Assyrians and had to be corrected by Isaiah, but after God extended his life by fifteen years (the shadow of his sundial retreated whilst he lay on his deathbed), Hezekiah strengthened his heart and emerged as a great king. Judah flourished under his reign and 185,000 Assyrians were miraculously destroyed by a plague from God as they prepared to lay siege to Jerusalem: the turning point for Sennacherib and Assyria.

Thus one man stood against the influences of an age of turmoil, paganism and the destruction of the ten northern tribes of Israel, to restore dignity to his small, fragile kingdom. The chronicles describe him as the greatest of all the kings of Judah, including those before and after his reign. He held fast to the the LORD and kept the commandments (2 Kings 18: 5-8).

I once consulted with my government, for a large Banking group. The department of housing was dysfunctional from its fringes to its core. Décor was messy, people unfriendly and systems did not work, in a society that so desperately needed leadership in the area of housing. At the heart of that department was an insecure, combative, myopic and arrogant leader, whose influence over the thousands who worked with her corrupted the entire organization. I then went to the Department of Trade and Industries. As I stepped into their entrance foyer, I was greeted by freshly painted walls, smart premises, friendly and professional staff and efficient processes. At the heart of that organization was an efficient, approachable and sound leader, who left a stamp of distinction on his entire organization.

One person made all the difference in those modern “kingdoms”, just as surely as each bad king corrupted all of Israel but one good king reversed the tides for Judah. You too could be someone capable of making a telling difference where you work or serve God.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Between life and death

2008-03-03T01:11:00.000-08:00

A poem about the competing forces, which contend for our souls and swoop on our moments of decision

Rustle of feather,
whispered on wind
golden eyes that never
miss the slightest thing.
Riding unseen thermal,
watching and waiting
silent solitary sentinel
imperious: all seeing.

A slight movement,
at the edge of the field,
there, but for a moment,
so nearly unperceived.
Her senses heightened,
bright eyes fixed, gazing.
Her wing tips tighten,
to her prey unsuspecting.

Down, down she dives,
silent, shadowy assassin.
Unsheathes her knives,
breathless to the kill.
The sky fills with terror,
the mouse in frozen fear
its final, fateful error
such fragile life to shear.

Two raptors challenge,
like matlers in a ring:
rushing forward, lunge
as bright heavens sing.
One dark, foreboding,
the other light to heal,
the dark, to steal and kill
but light new life to seal.

In all our human frailty,
we scurry human plains
seeking hope with fealty
for all our mortal pains.
Satan, watching waits
to pounce unwary victim,
whilst God’s spirit, sates
the hollow thirsts of sin.

One victim, two hunters
split destiny’s fateful path.
One to tear, break asunder
what God saves from wrath.
The victim has no choice
time will come for all,
but life in balanced poise
yields to the nobler call.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

South Africa: a prophecy

2008-02-27T14:57:00.000-08:00

God has His hand on the confusion of present crises and will also lead you through it, to a new day.

About a year ago I saw a picture of a mighty storm rising on the African plains. It portended a time of upheaval, but whilst many trembled and fled for refuge, the farmer went outside and said, “This is peace, for now my crops will prosper”.

Likewise I looked out to sea and felt a great wind howling across the waves. A tempest was building. Many trembled and fled for refuge, but the sailor came on deck, looked up at the storm and smiled through the wind that whipped his face, saying: “This is peace, for now I will speed to my harbor, my objective”.

Then I saw a furnace, bright, furious heat and flames that melted metal and burnt away all impurities. Onlookers retreated and found refuge from the flames, but the ironmonger said, “This is peace. For now I shall turn my raw metal into the finest steel and it shall be to me a sword”.

I believe we are now in the eye of a great season of political and social upheaval that will bring all kinds of insecurity to this great land. Many will tremble as troubles are multiplied. A storm is imminent and already the winds of great transformation are blowing over the land. The fires are hot and furious.

But the winds will blow away the undercurrent of this nation. They will blow away those things that frustrate God’s purposes for this land and they shall blow us towards our destined purpose as a nation amongst nations.

The storm will wash away the residue and cleanse the land, but it will also replenish us and restore abundance to our fields of harvest so that we may feed the nations out of our surpluses.

The fire will burn away all that is wrong and impure. Judgment is coming on corruption, wrong-doing, immorality and evil powers. They will not prevail, nor will they even rise up, for those without legitimate authority will be exposed by the fury of the storm, the wind and the fire. The fire will turn our abundant resources into the essence of our authority and power as a nation, for greatness will emerge from these flames.

God does have a destiny for this land. It has been a significant platform for great spiritual flows in the world and continues to be a substantial influence for peace, righteousness and justice, both in Spiritual and Political contexts. It has struggled for justice and it will prevail to be a light to the nations.

Don’t fret as you see trouble coming for His peace will prevail and after the storm, the wind and the fire, will come healing and abundance.

Leaders urge your people to pray that God's purpose for this nation be advanced and that those with evil agenda be exposed and deposed, so that righteousness may exalt this nation.

(c) Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com/

Arise, shine (poem)

2008-02-22T04:58:00.000-08:00

I looked up and saw a bloody, shrouded moon. I heard distant thunder and I felt the earth tremble.

Dark, sombre, brooding moonlight,
swirling clouds, forbidding sky.
Deep, eerie shadows, fade the sight
declare the end in cold wind’s sigh.
A grey pallid moon, draws her veils
cloak of darkness stained by blood
through dark nights, she silently sails
turns stone to clay and clay to mud.

So melts this day into endless night,
the globe splutters, shatters and dies:
Fragments crash from broken light,
that once enlightened human fire.
Age of reason, lost in hopeless thought
unreasoning thus, man’s noblest hour.
Clouds rise to darken burning shores
where men fought the darkest powers.

In fading shadows of this twilight,
rise new light, eclipse the fading dark.
This new day come, no more the night
amid trumpet sound, herald angels hark.
Passing night, yields crimson dawn
the church triumphant, greets her hour.
sadness melts, no more to mourn
lo’ warrior bride, bright sword drawn.

Arise shine, light arise and scatter night.
Raising sword she marks the hour,
battle lines thus drawn, dark and light
amid great shouts, bright banners high,
descend that vast, dread human plain
to the final battle: the end is near.
The sun held high against falling rain
her King rides out, to rampant cheer …

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Arise shine

2008-02-21T02:09:00.000-08:00

Last night the western hemisphere experienced a sombre, bloody moon. It was a full lunar eclipse..

Joel 2:31, speaks of the great and terrible day of judgment that is coming on the earth in the signs of a darkened sun and a bloodied moon. I also recall Isaiah’s words, which I express through an ancient poem:

“Arise shine for thy light is come
Hark, ‘tis the prophet of the skies;
proclaims redemption is near.
The night of death, and bondage flies,
the dawning tints appear.
Zion from deepest shades of gloom
Awakes to glorious day.”

Two themes use similar symbols. The reflected light of the moon in eclipse portends a time of trouble, whilst reflected light, as in the moon, also reflects the response of the church to a soon and coming King.

The Psalmists repeatedly refer to the horse and rider going down, but the righteous going up. There is something of that in the prophetic heart of God right now.

Many believers have been really downcast in the past few years, overwhelmed by difficulties and diverse struggles of diverse kinds. But the light of the righteous was never dulled, nor did it fade in those dark days. Indeed, the light of the righteous has never faded for all of history, for darkness shall never prevail against the light.

But now, as believers push through and recover from the long night, the light of the righteous is shining brighter and brighter until that perfect day. But another light is fading.

The enlightenment of our age, the wisdom of our world and all its dreams of greatness, is fading. The bloody moon speaks of fading glories. All the battles of history and the triumphs of human civilization face a titanic struggle. The climax of the ages, as prophesied by the bible, is at hand. The world is losing its grip on world events.

There is danger everywhere. The world economy is on edge, the Middle-East is about to explode, nuclear weapons are falling into the hands of terrible despots and madness is breaking out across the earth. The light of reason and goodwill is fading and the love of many is growing cold.

But the church is at the threshold of her greatest hour and is adorned for her bridegroom. Salvation is breaking out and a time of greatness is on us. So Arise, Shine, for your Light has come, and the glory of God is risen on you.”

Don’t put your confidence in the world or its systems, for their time of judgment is come. You are not of this world, for they that believe in Him, “seek a kingdom, whose builder and maker is God.”

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Burn on oil

2008-02-11T05:54:00.000-08:00

Like high GI foods, many Christian experiences can lift you up quickly but then soon let you down.

A high glycaemic index diet (high GI) comprises fast burning carbohydrates that have some place in providing quick spurts of short-term energy. However, they are not good for us as they lead to weight gain and high cholesterol levels. Low GI foods keep you feeling full and healthy for longer intervals between meals, thus reducing our craving for junk food and stimulants. Caffeine has a similar effect in that it picks us up quickly and then lets us down, whereas vitamin B and proteins provide us with sustainable energy and a sense of healthy wellbeing or vitality.

The Christian diet is full of high GI experiences. We go to church to be fed with all kinds of highs, using music, experiences and exciting ministry or prayer lines to keep us coming back for more. The problem is that by Monday, when the reality of life bites again, those stimulants quickly wear off, leaving us depleted and frustrated.

There is a need for the low GI sustenance that will keep us burning until Jesus returns. I allude here to the seven wise virgins who trimmed their lamps (Matthew 25:11-12), until the bridegroom arrived at the wedding feast. I won’t go into the background as it is not deeply critical to the story, but will say that seven other (foolish) virgins burnt their lamps at full wick and ran out of oil before the bridegroom returned, the bridegroom being an allegory of Christ returning for His church.

Many of us fall into the trap of burning on our wicks instead of burning on the oil. The oil is the spirit, the wick is our flesh. We burn out readily when we consume our own limited human capacity. We burn long into the night when we are fuelled by God’s Spirit.

It is not possible to sustain believers from high to high and far too many church leaders have made a terrible whip for their backs by trying to sustain crowds through programs. Someone once said, “the way you win them is the way you must be prepared to keep them” and that is the fate of any minister who uses programs to drive bums onto his church seats.

Jesus never commanded us to go and make crowds or converts, as such. He commissioned us to be witnesses, a powerful turn of phrase that implicates our whole lives not just what we say. He also said, “Go and make disciples”. Disciples are the product of discipline, the activity of those who take charge of their own response to God and seek to grasp His truth in a deliberate and committed way. I am against spoon-feeding and believe that believers need to grow up into their Holy Faith (2 Thessalonians 1:3).

Leaders have an important role to play in mentoring and instructing believers through the growing-up period, just as a father ought to instruct his children. But it is not required of us to keep babying believers, nor indeed do I think real believers seek to be babied. They are sheep, needing shepherds to walk with them to higher ground and green pasture. They are not cattle to be herded from program to program or from event to event.
We must facilitate the transformation of every son into a practicing priest in the house of God. I am deeply opposed to the clergy-laity model and feel it has permeated the entire spectrum of Christianity. It is pervasive and self-defeating.

Believers learn far more from doing than they will ever learn from sitting and listening. Teaching is not an end to our faith but the means to an end that will transform novices into effective, contributing priests and active stakeholders in God’s kingdom.

That demands a very different diet. A condescending approach is not going to do it. The assumption that only a few can minister and the rest should remain the ministered to, is a bankrupt concept as it induces no buy in, no investment of lives into the enterprise. A passive involvement never bred maturity, but active engagement brings us into the middle of the river to flow with the life of His kingdom.

Believers must be weaned off milk (Hebrews 6:1-10) and into the meat, which implies a walk of real personal faith and an end to dead-works or compensatory, religious or compliant behavior. It demands that we pursue the resurrection of the dead as something to be attained to, not as a right (Philippians 3:11), and that we account for our own souls in full understanding of God’s eternal judgment.

© Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Through the breech

2008-02-03T05:48:00.000-08:00

Another time, another place,
tears of blood course His face.
the shepherd cries for His flock
and gazes up at yonder rock …
as the giant repeats his call,
“this time you must surely fall”.
Stony hide cuts His stride
ploughed back, stifled cry
on wounded shoulder borne
thorny cross and bloody crown.
Alone he hangs on mortal cross
alone atop His destined rock.

Men on knees, cry to God.
Eyes well and flood each heart.
Look beyond, there the start,
where Christ did chasms part …
alone on rocky mound,
amongst hell’s rabid hound.
His life like surest stone
cast darkness from its throne.
A shout breeched death’s span
‘tis finished, so died the man …
yet on this rock shall He stand
with His royal, blood-washed band.

A taste of heaven ...

2008-01-26T21:46:00.000-08:00

Is heaven a vacant cloud, where we will occupy time with harps and things and watch eternity go by?

In December we went for a drive that took us along a famous mountain pass. The pass hugs the coast, with precarious overhangs and steep cliffs. The sea below is one of the most treacherous on earth, having claimed many ships throughout history.

It is often very windy up there and engineering has had to be done to restrain rock falls, so it is not a safe place: neither is heaven.

We found a lookout point and took out our picnic baskets to enjoy the last of a perfect day. The sun was setting over the bay on a windless evening. Colors and hues reflected over the shimmering seas and two whales frolicked in the cold water. The air was still as though even heaven held its breath at the wonder before us.

I said to my family, “Right now, this is one of the ten most profound moments on the planet.” The sun slowly melted into the horizon, boiling the sea in a riot of colors until its orb slipped away: the day was done, but its glory lingered for a long while before the night came. We had seen something of the wonder of God.

A few nights later we returned, but the wind was up and so we could not relive the earlier moment. Instead we drove down to a beach which was sheltered from the wind. There we walked along sandy shore through icy water, whilst the shadows lengthened. Then we climbed some dunes that gave us a 360 degree view of the bay: town lights lay behind us, mountains flanked us and the sun-washed sea lay ahead. We played in the dunes and talked well beyond sunset and finally retreated in the darkness that followed.

That was one of the most memorable moments of my life. But more importantly, it was the greater picture of glory. For heaven is not a scene or vista, nor is it a place of imposing architecture and golden highways. It is that too, but the essence of heaven is relationship. Experiences will be rich in shared memories, stories of everyday heroism and a common destiny in the future of the kingdom. The fabric of the place will knit hearts into divine purpose, raising an army of priests that will be co-laborers and co-heirs with Jesus through the countless sunrises and sunsets, of eternities yet to come.

© Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com

Breakthrough

2008-01-26T03:20:00.000-08:00

Swirling mists, stinging cordite:
streaming eyes pursue the light.
Young hearts, open ground
burst of fire, cannons pound.
Surge through fiery breech,
rise from burning beach.
Mounting up on solid rock,
breathless shaking shock …
Pipes sound, flags unfurl;
the ground holds, it is well.
Look beyond, it’s just begun
Now this evil overcome.

Across the gulf, a shout,
stirs fear and troubled doubt.
Ragged battle lines are drawn,
watch as giant meets fragile pawn
Strong men cower on victory mound,
huddled stand, uncertain ground.
“His fight’s not won, until I fall”,
the dread giant makes his call.
Another cry from yonder rock,
cuts across the giant’s mock.
Stone cuts through air and brow
So it ends, the foe is cowed.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

7 Habits of successful Christian writers

2008-01-23T00:29:00.000-08:00

1. Start with the end in mind

This is a Stephen Covey principle that applies to writing. One of the big mistakes we see daily in marketing, is a tendency to say, “Here is a solution, let’s see if I can find a problem to fit it”, or rather “Lets make your problem fit my solution”.

The counter-view is best described by the story of a man who went to a store to buy a drill, only to be asked, “What do you want to do?” He replied, “I need to make a hole in the wall”, to which the store manager replied, “Ah, well then what you need is a thing that makes holes in walls”. It seems obvious I know, yet many salesmen have spent frustrated careers pushing a product instead of solving needs. A good marketer should start with a blank sheet and ask the customer, “What is your need and what can we do to solve it?” – that is the new marketing paradigm.

It is no less true that a book should satisfy a need. To that end, an effective author would sit down, prayerfully to determine what a book is intending to achieve. Are you writing to satisfy your ego or your needs, or is the need of your audience more important.

Airbus built the A380, the largest passenger aircraft in history. Boeing on the other hand asked what the customer needed - the answer to that was the smaller, Dreamliner. This remarkable plane flies non-stop from point to point, without having to hub via airports like Atlanta or Chicago. It is very fuel efficient and sized to optimize the percentage utilization. It also has many comforts that make long-haul flight a delight. So where did Airbus go wrong? They seem to have set out to please themselves and satisfy their own egos and it blinded them to their customers.

2. Get going

I started writing a journal of my experiences in a time of great personal struggle. That start was analogous to being able to steer a moving vehicle (as opposed to trying the same with a stationary vehicle). Once I had set my sail and cast off, I moved out of my safe moorings into open water and then was able to feel God’s breath fill the sail – the adventure was underway. I had to make the first move. I had to depart and get out of the departure lounge – after all we don’t fly in order to have the lounge experiences, we lounge in order to fly.

As I wrote my journal, God gave life to my words and started to reveal His heart in the context of my pains. I became the pen of a ready Writer who, in His profoundly down-to-earth style, has chosen to reveal His heart through people – it was always that way. He called ordinary souls from ordinary circumstances and when they responded He showed them great mysteries. When He had finished writing those stories, He arranged for them to be bound into a single book and then allowed us to call it “the bible”. It’s a book whose pages are alive with powerful human drama interwoven with deep truth. It was not written as a manual, but as a narrative that progressively reveals His heart to us, a heart that yearns for a personal and rich relationship with His people. The same spirit works to brings significance to all our lives and specifically, in this context anyway, to those who feel called to write about the author of all things.

3. Make it a journey

Once the intent of a book is determined and your passion for the subject is ignited and God’s spirit has filled your sails, set your course and stay with it. Jesus set His eyes as a flint towards Jerusalem, in much the same way that a book embarked on, is a mission that must have a destination.

En route to the cross, Jesus healed people and we are often inclined to see that as the defining feature of His life. Yet He never once diverted from His course to be a man of wonders. He did as many miracles and healings as was necessary to achieve His surpassing purpose and it gave credence to His defining work at the cross. En-route to our own Jerusalem, we also have a journey to walk that will be interspersed with relevant experiences that will complement the greater story and provide it with rich fabric. God will lead you to people, places and events that will help to give the story credence. However, no experience will exist for its own sake, nor will such events be ends in themselves – they must become part of the journey to your destination and be shared as relevant moments along the way.

As a Toastmaster I was taught: Tell the audience where you are going, take them there and then tell them where they came from. The whole story must confirm and validate the passion and inspiration that was the raison d’être for which the book was birthed in the first place. Accordingly, the prologue, back page, introduction and opening chapters should provide a clear indication of where you are going and the content must take the audience there – otherwise you have not fulfilled your promise to them. It is for this reason that I believe content (the experience or story) to be more relevant than style – anybody can learn style, but only you can write your own story and that is the story God wants you to tell, even if it ultimately has other imperfections.

4. Be relevant

The stories of old provided reference points for historians. They highlighted cultural and environmental contexts and helped put the audience in that time and place. That is why we relate to those stories.
Similarly, your story must not be out of touch with your current culture else it will never find an audience. The people that spoke then spoke to “then-audiences”, but we speak now and should address “now-audiences”.

Does that demand a contemporary style of writing? No, I don’t think timeless stories need to go that far, but try and read something written a century ago and you will be bored out of your skull. We must at least speak in the vernacular of our culture and use examples and illustrations that they can relate to. Someone tried to translate the bible into a lesser African language and came to the concept “white as snow”. There was no way to translate it into that culture, so they chose something more relevant – perhaps “as white as the down-feathers of a goose” or “as white as the white of your eyes when you bump into a lion in the middle of the forest”.

Relevance also relates to the need to convey your real experiences to your audience. Don’t borrow ideas or pretend to be something you are not – that will rob your story of its soul. Tell it from the heart and relate your real world experiences and how God has been relevant to you in those experiences.

5. Touch hearts

A good book, especially a spiritual one, should make them laugh, make them cry, make them sit up and make them act. Never be one-dimensional. God has always filled my life with delightfully amusing moments that were illustrative, yet so useful in holding audience attention. He used the same style.

The story of the man at the pool of Siloam is a case in point. Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath and told him to “take up his bed and walk”. He could have waited another day to avoid a conflict, but Sabbath was the day He chose anyway. The Pharisees, on seeing him walking around with his bed castigated the man, in spite of the fact that he was walking for the first time in his life. That’s like telling a child not to open his presents on Christmas morning.

This poor man was exhibiting his joy in the very spirit of the Sabbath, rejoicing in the love and mercy of God as we all should do, so when they asked him about it, all he could say, whilst grinning like a Cheshire cat, was “Hey guys, I don’t know much, but I do know that Jesus healed me today”. It’s a really funny moment, told with such dry wit that it is easy to miss the moment. Yet as much as it is funny, it very effectively illustrates a powerful point without any need for preaching or elaboration – Jesus had made a point, without having to say much at all. So having made them laugh, maybe even cry when Jesus and the disciples talked about it later, he also made them sit up – he challenged them. His was a very efficient style that provided remarkably teachable moments.

6. Pay attention to detail

The term, “well done good and faithful servant”, is reserved for those who are faithful in stewarding what God entrusts to them.

Cain was a man of original ideas, who showed no sensitivity to the needs of his audience and critic – God. If he had been more in touch with God, he would have taken a lot more trouble to do the right things, which Abel did do. Yet in effect Abel only brought back to God what God had entrusted to him in the first place, even if in so doing he was very careful and thorough in his approach.

Joshua was a steward of Israel and paid great attention to detail in that role. He was careful in everything, resulting in his life work becoming a lasting memorial to his name. The details that we must worry about in writing, include: planning, writing, editing (400-500 times should do), grammar, spelling, layout (I researched books in book stores to get that right), cover design, prologues, back cover text, introductions, referencing, text style and spacing, logical flow, testing, review, packaging, pricing (I researched that as well), etc.

If you want God to bless what really came from Him in the first place, then honor Him in your application and don’t stop working until you know that your book is worthy of someone who has put such significant trust in you. In fact, I don’t think a book is done until He signals that it is done – you will know when that is. Besides anything else, the timing of a book is something best timed by God, who knows the beginning from the end.

7. Manage your marketing channels

Before Jesus was born, the way (channel) was prepared so that when He stood up to speak to the people, his platform would be assured. God actually prepared that platform over a period of 4,000 years so that His ministry would have relevance to that world. Sin and judgment were two primary concepts that were ingrained in the social conscience before He came.

God also prepared the physical distribution channels, by introducing Jesus to the world only once the Romans had completed their roads and the Greek language had universalized communications. This also shows great attention to detail, which reflects how deeply serious God was about the process of salvation and judgment.

Then Jesus built on that platform to establish a higher platform for the cross. Jesus used His three short years of human life to meticulously prepare for the cross, approaching His destiny with absolute single-mindedness.

Once He had made His great sacrifice and written our salvation story in His own blood, God raised up heralds (apostles and followers), who could take the message to the nations and then He kick-started the process by scattering those believers to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. Thus God left nothing to chance – He knew how to prepare for life after the cross and He prepares in advance for the conclusion of those projects that He entrusts to us – things will not catch Him by surprise, but you will need to follow His lead and apply your faith to see your book successfully birthed. He will almost certainly continue teaching you His ways in the process of getting your book to market, but then He is a very good marketer – He executed an effective marketing campaign to disseminate the gospel to the four corners of the earth.

He also used channels that were relevant to that culture, notably the Greek language, Roman roads, Jewish synagogues, Greek debates, etc. Our channels today include the Internet, email, networking, e-books and blogging, amongst others. Paul would have recommended using all of these, “if by any means some might be saved” – I advocate a similar multi-channel strategy. One new writer harnessed all these channels including networking through established networks, like Christian magazines – to get her books to market. She has seen a steady increase in orders and hits for her various marketing channels, a great example worth following.

Conclusion

All of these seven habits involve deliberate and thorough processes to eliminate the chance element – chance rarely begets luck, it normally involve bad luck, so don’t leave something so life-giving, so vital, to chance. A great retailer said, “I worry about the cents and the dollars take care of themselves”. A Great golfer said, “The harder I try, the luckier I get”. A great salesman said, “I work on every aspect of my game, and the payoff pays itself off”. Learn from these things and your will enhance the probability of success until you break through.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Don't despise small beginnings

2008-01-17T08:49:00.000-08:00

I have rarely been lost. My love for hiking goes back to my youth - a love that I introduced to my family as I lead them across steep crags, high above foaming beaches, deep river gorges and wild places. Yet despite a great sense of direction I recently got lost within a mile of my holiday home.

I loved to go walking at night to pray and meditate, but one night I took a wrong turn. I wasn't worried, initially anyway, because I trusted my sense of direction, but all the roads were cresent-shaped, so whenever I trusted my instincts and headed off in one direction I ended up where I least expected to. After a few hours of plodding around I realised I was lost, despite the presence of normally reliable reference points.

So I prayed for direction. Just then I felt a tug in my heart and looking down I saw the name plate of the house in front of me. It read, "Small beginnings".

After two years of deep turmoil in my life, I understood the relevance of what God was saying. I was lost within a mile from home, just as lost as I had become within the proximity of friends, church, colleagues and other familiar surroundings. But the way back was not along the highway. I needed to stoop low and start at a small beginning, following the first principles of the rod and staff of God, out of the miry clay and back onto solid ground.

A security guard rode by and I waved him down to ask where the village was. "Round the next bend you will find the traffic lights ..." That was a good enough starting point. From there I followed the road that led back home. At night it looked so unfamiliar, but I knew it was the right road, so I stuck with it.

When we get lost in life, the right thing to do is not to carry on struggling, turning along new roads that get us more lost. We need to stop and find a small beginning, not a popular beginning, but a point of departure close to His feet. As we humble ourselves to His way, the mist will clear. Then we will follow the road less travelled, over unfamiliar ground, back to a place of restoration and wholeness.

Never despise a small beginning.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Be a man my son: a poem on Godly manhood.

2007-11-21T08:43:00.001-08:00

To God a sacrifice they made
as for Abel so for Cain,
Cain gave his sweat and toil,
proofs of man, fruits of soil.
Yet Abel turned not one sod,
but searched the heart of God …
and took one lamb from his flock
so burned his best upon a rock.

God would not accept the sweat,
soil and toil held no respect.
No such man is ever mine,
nor cares to even ponder why.
But Abel, he gave back to me
what was first entrust to him
that no work e’r would please
except first, it came from me …

Jacob turned from soil and toil
as Abel was, a pastoral boy …
cared for what to him was giv’n
gave up all, for His blessing.
For food, Esau forsook forever
what Jacob knew to be far better
God’s favour, as it was for Abel,
fell to him whose heart was able.

Jesse’s son so pastoral too,
sheep watcher, heart attuned
to what really makes a man
not in beauty, brawn or brain
but hearts that yield to Him.
All for Him, to live and give
and love all that He entrusts:
higher calls and greater loves.

So go, be thus a man in Him,
honest, true, wise, no sin.
As flies the arrow, so sure
keep your way true and pure ..
so account to Him alone
your life before eternal throne
to hear Him say “well done,
my servant, friend and son”.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

What defines men of value?

2007-11-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

I recently heard a preacher speak of features like sweat, brawn, macho pursuits and other manly activities. It was an interesting treatise, but I must question the line of thinking.

What does the bible reveal about the issue? Does a biblical man need to be big, hairy, strong, sweaty and manly? I don't think so. I won't refute that many biblical men were just that, but I cannot concede that it is either a prerequisite or a defining feature of biblical manhood.

I have met far too many big, mean guys who were also quite weak on matters of principle, decision making, leadership of their homes, defence of values or engagement of social issues - indeed often brawn is a cover-up for other inadequacies. Yet I have seen many less impressive and often softer-spoken men take on giants, fight for the truth and engage issues of concern to the world around us, whilst still finding time to lead their families with integrity and passion. Thus God too loks on the heart of a man, whilst men look on outward appearances and in doing often misjudge and overlook what God favors.

Jim Collins, in his great book on good to great leadership, sifted through all the leaders of America to arrive at just ten great leaders, all of whom were soft-spoken and self-deprecating, yet fiercely resolute. His level 10 leader is often obscure, never outshining of others, a team builder, an influencer.

We are always on dangerous ground when we stereotype people and that is no less true of male stereotypes. It would be as wrong for me to argue that a man should be big, hairy and brawny as it would be for me to exclude less physical or slighter men, purely on the basis of impressions.

So what are our biblical precedents?

Cain was a man of the earth, who bent his back to the hot sun, to sweat and toil every day. He was a man's man, maybe, but when He tried to foist his manliness on God, he was rejected and found wanting. God found no delight in the fruit of his toils, no pleasure in the produce of the earth. Abel on the other hand, was a pastoral man, given to the gentler pursuits of shepherding that which had been entrusted to him. His faithful stewardship enabled him to offer a better sacrifice to God and thus found God's approval, to the murderous chagrin of his foolish, weak-minded sibling. Just consider here that the essence of corporate leadership is about stewarding of shareholder value, not about carving one's one personal career or image - that ought to put some of my arguments into perspective.

Esau was another man's man. Hairy would be an understatement. His name alluded to his hairiness and he was red as well, not to mention strong, physical and given to manly pursuits like hunting. Yet he had no clue about his heritage and no inclination to fight for that heritage. He also felt he had a birthright to God's favor without any obligation to steward what would so be entrusted to him. God would have none of that. He had no inclination, as the Great Steward, to entrust a significant dynasty and all that it stood for, to a foolish airhead. Instead God turned to the lesser of the two brothers, the one that the men of that culture had maginalized in favor of beefy Esau.

Jacob never dropped the ball. He too was a pastoral man, caring for what was entrusted to him as he also did with the great heritage that Isaac reluctantly ceded to him.

David, the greatest of all Jewish kings, was also a shepherd, of sheep and men. He was a man of poetry and music (he must have been gay??), an immensely courageous fighter, a deeply principled man and a faithful friend. His love for Jonathon exceeded the love of woman (what have we here?), but theirs was a quintessentially manly relationship of a depth that I have rarely witnessed between real men.

So my definition of a man is that he should be pastoral first: caring for all that is entrusted to him, namely his own life, his family and the community. He should be a priestly intercessor of those in his care and place such things above his own ego or selfish needs. He should fight for his constituencies and lay down his life if need be. The same man should be able to stand before God at the end of his life and give a noble account of all that was entrusted to him.

Therein is the mark of a real man.

(c) peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

How much for your time?

2007-11-20T18:08:00.000-08:00

A man came home late, to find his 5 year old son waiting for him at the door. "Dad, may I ask you how much money you make an hour?" "That's none of your business!" the man said angrily."Please tell me," pleaded the little boy."If you must know, I make $20.00 an hour."

"Oh," the little boy replied, head bowed. Looking up, he said, "may I borrow $9.00 please?" The father was angry. "You just need my money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense. Think about why you're being so selfish. I work hard everyday and don't have time for childish games."

The boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The father soon regretted his harshness and went to his son. "I was too hard on you earlier," said the man. "I am just tired, but here's that $9.00 you asked for."

The little boy sat straight up, beaming. "Oh, thanks dad" he yelled.Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some more crumpled up bills. The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at the man.

"Why did you want more money if you already had some?" the father grumbled. "Because I didn't have enough, but now I do," the little boy replied. "Daddy, I have $20.00 now. Can I buy an hour of your time?"

Ever wonder what God would have to do to get an hour of your time?

Source: world bible school
Image: fountains of time by Lorado Tuft

Houston I think we have a problem

2007-11-20T18:06:00.001-08:00

When they went up there, the astronauts marvelled at the beauty of our planet. Its still a marvel.

But things are changing ... its getting hot down below. Not only is the climate getting warmer, but world events are actually on a dangerous precipice.

I feel many are insulating themselves from exceedingly dangerous times.

Okay, lets try another angle. Money really talks I know. So if I told you that Gold is about to go through the ceiling, property prices will fall significantly and fuel for your car will take up 20% of the household budget, would that help to goad you to some action: action like simplifying your lifestyle, getting out of debt and living within your means.

That may be about the best money advice you could hope to get in these heady days - because it really does not look good.

US property prices have sagged badly, a contagion that is reaching around the world. The oil price is just under $100 a barrel - and we cried when it hit $50 a barrel a few short years ago. The middle east is in dire straights, with a major war looming. The dollar is sliding. Floods in Mexico have been unprecedented. Global warming is a looming catastrophe.

I am not being alarmist - of course life must go on, but anticipating what is happening could help equip you and yours for survival in the coming winter.

One night with the King

2007-11-19T07:43:00.001-08:00

The movie of the same name, doesn't do full justice to a great story. Some of the acting is weak and the dialogue does not fully hold the story together. However, it still left me sobbing over an immensely courageous young woman whose actions spared the Jews and enabled us to inherit a vast legacy.

I sobbed deeply and lifted up my hands to God in thanks for an act that has been memorialised in the Jewish festival of Purim: which not only relates to the historic absolute of Esther (Hadassah), but also to many other moments of remarkeable deliverance by God.

Esther had a great sense of what the king wanted. She also pursued his heart, rather than his wealth or status. In her feisty, beautiful and inspiring way, she won the hearts of all, including the eunuchs who chaperoned her, her competition for the throne and, ultimately, her king.

But it was when her people were most threatened that her real beauty shone through. Her tough, remote, powerful king melted under her subtle, gracious influence. She broke through his aloof resolve, to reach the heart that once defined their marriage.

Though she should not have approached the king uninvited, she approached anyway, at great personal risk. What could have embarrassed the king, turned to her favour. She conquered the all-conquering purveyor of Persia. In a climactic moment of palace intrigue, she exposed Haman's ambitions for the throne and the anhihilation of her people. He was hung, but she was draped like a priceless necklace across the pages of history.

Never underestimate how much your life can count in the hands of God, when it takes a courageous stand at a momentous time. You too could become a history maker in the right hands, and the right time and place. You too could melt hardened hearts and turn leaders from disaster.

But, as I said to my sons in the moving afterglow of the movie, never lose touch of your heritage, for that is what defines your life purpose. Fighting for political issues or social causes is one thing, but to fight for the legacy handed down by countless generations of brave, inspired men and women, is a truly worthy cause. Never forget the rock from whence you were hewn and never lay down your sword, for our struggle shall not be in vain.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

The King arises ....

2007-11-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

In a celebrated wildlife DVD, a cobra bit a lioness and her cubs. The cubs died and she was left to work poison through her system and grief through her heart. She received no help because hers was a personal struggle that she had to win to reclaim her place in the pride.

Hyenas worried her for ten days as she fought to regain her health and recover. As the season of struggle continued, she slowly regained strength to make a full recovery. She triumphed over the serpent and the hyenas.

Hyenas are good archetypes of the demonic, opressive, spiritual forces that worry, persecute, frustrate and hound believers.

Soon after this, the lioness was watching one of the big males of her pride move through a clearing, marking pride boundaries. The spiritual principles are so clear, for the essence of our spiritual struggle is to enter our heritage, establish our boundaries and come to a place of certainty and rest, something that Satan will opppose furiously

The large matriarch of the hyenas that had once troubled her, followed the Lion and scratched at his markings. This was an open challenge of his territorial claims and the claims of the pride.

The weak lioness saw this. In light of her recent struggle, something exploded in her. She started chasing the hyena. Just then, the dominant male in her pride entered the clearing, some distance behind her own position in the charge.

He quickly summed up the situation and knew she was not yet ready to hold such a charge. But more because of the offence and the fact that she had already borne enough sorrow, He charged. Within moments he overhauled her - it was no longer her fight, but a contest between the King and his "eternal enemy". Bounding through the air in mighty leaps and with an awesome display of power, the huge male bore down on a deeply frightened and regretful hyena.

A hyena is no sloth and is also a very effective hunter, but she was no match for a big lion at full flight. He closed the distance and with one, well-timed swipe of his mighty paw, broke the hyena's back. The King had spoken .... that is why few hyenas would dare get in the way of a male lion.

There is and has been a hounding of believers, a season of many struggles of diverse kinds that has been on the church. It reflects what ancient Israel contuously faced at the hands of the neighbouring Philistines: a persistent badgering that mindlessly undermines the resolve of God's people and leaves them in despair.

But the time will come in every cycle of crisis, when the King will arise, overtake us and haul in our immortal enemies to drive them away. The King will arise, He will have the final word ... for the shout of a King is amongst us and to they that overcome will be given the prize reserved for the faithful.

Jesus is not some tame Lion, to be domesticated within our religious, cultured, safe contexts. Like Aslan of Narnia, He is the mighty lion who appears in the fullness of time to break the cycle and end our struggles.

Arise, Shine, for your light has come and the glory of the lord is risen on you: Isaiah 60:1.

(c) Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com/

I know when Jesus is returning

2007-11-05T16:54:00.000-08:00

My youngest son came to me today to tell me he had a dream. The dream suggested that he knew when Jesus would return, that spring had come. As Danny is already showing prophetic inclinations that have been confirmed in a number of ways, I take things like this seriously.

He is right - we can know when Jesus is going to return.

Okay, lets be fair: I don't know the exact time or date, not even Jesus does - only the Father knows the times and seasons.

However, Jesus confirmed in the gospels, that just as we can read the signs of the weather and know when it is going to rain, so we can read the signs of the times and know that His return is near.

Paul simply said that His return was nearer than when we first believed. But that was 2,000 years ago. It is now very much nearer and the stage is now set for the climax of the ages, the fulfilment of prophecy.

The events in the middle east, covered separately under my "Prophetic News Commentary", point to a rapid development of a dangerous Islamic axis that would link the world's most powerful and populous nations with the middle east, including the US, Europe, Russia, India, China and the Arab world. That accounts for over 3billion people, implicating the majority of the world.

The alignment of Islamic nations from Afghanistan to Israel, including Pakistan, has been largely due to US foreign policy and George Bush's disastrous intervention in Iraq. The world always warned that, whilst the US would win the initial war, they would be left with an unsustainable long-term crisis - which is exactly what has happened.

However, the bible predicted all that is happening right now, including the maturing of the current Russian-Iranian alliance and the eventual intervention of China. The greatest motive for these intrusions relates to power. Oil may well be substituted in consumer markets, with solar or electric power. But you can only run complex military formations on oil - oil and the lack thereof has the ability to define the military prowess of nations and is fast becoming a non-negotiable demand commodity.

The only thing that the oil rich, mid-east nations (Iraq has 25% of world reserves) would trade for oil rights, is Israel - and Israel sits on the western fringe of the emerging Islamic axis.

These events all come at a time when US economic and military dominance is on the wane, with Russia, China, India and other nations growing in military capability. All players have nuclear stockpiles, so the stage is set for a major meltdown.

So, yes, I really believe that Jesus is coming soon.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Keep your eye on the ball ... in sport and life. Focus on what you are called to be, not on pleasing others ....

2007-10-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

Despite identical rations, our two dogs would always suspect that the other got a better deal and so fight over their food … until the smaller one, having climbed into its bowl, was itself suspected of being a better meal – they don’t compete any more. But dogs have always competed this way, for status in the pack.

My son was 3 when he learnt to fight back – “Mom, he hit me”. In reply she said: “We don’t tell on our brother unless he is danger”. 5 minutes later he was back: “Mom my brother’s in danger”. “Why is he in danger, son?” - “Because he hit me”. Now my two sons play other games, like “He has been on that video game at least one whole lifetime longer than I have”. Soon they may need sneakers, shades and a cell-phone just to qualify for the game of life.

Of course we “grow up” and our games become more subtle - we usually replace conflict with cosmetic or symbolic things to enhance our actual or perceived status.

The $trillion cosmetics industry proves how desperately we need to be more than we are. We enlarge breasts … well women do anyway, but barely has the silicon set before they complain that men are looking at them.

Others go to great lengths to shorten their skirts and then work as hard to keep them down to their knees. Men have their ups and downs too … a colleague recently bought a costly BMW X5, so I asked him “if you drive your house, what do you live in?” … “In a shack” he answered.

Confucius pondered these things and observed how "men will lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health. They will think anxiously about the future and forget the present, such that they live neither for the present nor the future and live as if they will never die, and then die as if they had never lived..... "

Nowhere is this more true, than for those who get to the top to find that someone else has done better than them – reducing their success to no success at all, partly because they can’t recognize success for what it is, but mainly because they had no objective measure of success to start with.

The key is to have an internal frame of reference.

Customer value is a valid yardstick or frame of reference for business success, yet firms still tend to measure their successes in terms of competitors’ achievements. “We have 25% market share … so hey, hey” … as though that’s enough. And the competitor then gets to define what we should be doing, not our customers.

Similarly individuals use their neighbors as a frame of reference – they feel okay as long as another seems worse off - or they compare themselves negatively and slip into a slavish pattern of living to everyone else’s standards … a dead-end.

Without a reference point, many will even become “technically successful” but miss the moment as it passes – rather becoming sick, psychotic or suicidal – another dead-end.

And then there are those who succeed by all external measures – but having conquered everything, they die of stress anyway and pass it all to their children to stress about … and in that one brief moment they finally achieve an elusive sense of family unity and purpose – their children even remember them and find something nice to say … but it’s a dead end anyway.

Okay … So how can you develop an internal frame of reference or homing mechanism?

In terms of sport I have taught my boys, two things. Keep your eye on the ball and don’t try too hard. As soon as someone is watching them, they try too hard, lift their heads and beat the air, so I take them back to basics and in no time they are fine again. In the same way you need to keep your eye on your personal values, priorities and objectives – so you can have a point of reference to guide your decisions and measure your achievements.

Peter’s idea of keeping his eye on the ball amounted to fixing his eyes on Jesus so that he did not sink beneath the waves. Jacob had a longer view. He anchored his soul to a stone, which he called the “house of God”: it helped him find his way back home and to escape oppression.

The writer to the Hebrews spoke of an anchor of the soul that extends beyond the veil. A life so anchored on a rock that cannot be moved and a beacon that rises above the clamor of life, is a sure stone, a precious cornerstone. Within the security of such an anchor, we just don’t need to try so hard and so can play our natural game, being what God purposed us to be, to hit without beating the air. That is a vital key to our own effectiveness.

When we look around, we sink, wallow, succumb to my own self-criticism and negatively compare my performance against others. But when we allow Jesus to be our compass, He leads us along paths we have not been before (Joshua 1) to bring us back to the Father. The Father will cast off our rags, clothe us as sons, place His ring on our finger (seal of approval) and anoint us for effective living within His house: to close the wounds opened by our natural fathers and enable us to live abundant lives.

“There is a green hill far away, upon a lonely hill, where the dear son of God was crucified, who died to save us all”. I point you back to a lonely, windswept, forgotten hill – there you will find your soul and the healing that you so need. Everything else is sinking sand.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

An inconvient truth. That's what Jesus is ... inconvenient to the status quo, to business, to the world ...

2007-10-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

Imagine advertising, circa 1000 years bc.

You are not a man unless you use Ismellyerpits unique cobra venom underarm spray. Keeps everything away, mosquitos, lions, slavemasters ... but women love it, because it's so manly.

Or

For the great achiever, the latest in chariots - comes complete with an ego rubbing board and shiny dashboard so you can see how you look before everyone else does.

Yet for far less we allow ourselves to be convinced by adverts suggesting we may be less than what God made us to be.

Yuck .... since when are we what we appear to be? Is it all about image and appearances? Are our lives defined by the company we keep or the car we drive? It is if you are an advertiser, desperately trying to get consumers separated from their hard earned livings. But otherwise it means very little.
God loves us and accepted us in spite of what He knows about us ... you that is.

This reminds me of an April Fool's yarn where people were advised by phone to leave town because their secrets were about to be revealed ... and a sizeable number duly left town.

The fact is, God does know us only too well and there are no secrets ... but He loves us anyway and He alone can free us from the mindless pursuit of approval that is rooted in the vanity of our souls.

We have a strange contradiction here, for the God of righteousness, who judges the hearts of all and established the law, is far more willing to accept us than the unlawless world is. Acceptance in this world is highly conditional and, to be honest, it does not make good business sense for you to start feeling too okay about yourself. Stock prices in medical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, military and general retail industries, would plummet.if people suddenly started feeling too comfortable with themselves.

As Shrek said, "Now fairy tale creatures, don't get too comfortable". Business is built on presuppositions about human vulnerability, vanity, inadequacy and covetousness. When Adam and Eve fell, their first instinct was to clothe themselves and to this day humans battle to find an adequate covering for their otherwise naked souls.

Yet Jesus hung nakedly on a cross whilst men cast lots for His outer garments. Religion is still dealing with the outer garments, the symbolism of Christ, yet the naked Saviour's real gesture to humankind lay in His willingness to exchange our nakedness for His own divine garments of approval, acceptance and righteousness. We can be clothed and accepted in Him, for He paid the price for our sin and rose from the dead to give us a new beginning in life, free of our wretched pasts. In reality He has paid for your rags already, so they technically are not yours unless you remain so attached to them that you would choose death over life and sickness over health and nakedness over wholeness.

No wonder Jesus is so unpopular - He is bad for business and the institution. They crucified Him 2000 years ago for the same reason ... His was a very inconvenient truth. Maybe Nobel Laureate Al Gore would concede to this point, that the naked truth of a suspended Saviour offers a more rational solution to a world that is fast burning up on its greed, vanity and materialism. Had we accepted the terms of the cross and the notion of a good life being good enough in itself without our material trappings, we might never have found ourselves plunging into global crises, wars may have been fewer and human misery would have been limited.

Jesus is like a roadsign at the crossroads of the busy freeways of life. His cruel death is a passing fancy to a preoccupied world, a social sideshow. Yet as a roadsign, He still points us back to our lost estate and the hope of peace, joy, wholeness, healing and eternal acceptance: unfortunately, His inconvenient message runs counter to the tide of life. We will ultimately tear ourselves apart, in spite of the obvious inconvenience of self-destruction. Yet those who turn back to Him, will find a peace that this world can never give and freedom from the chains that others call Liberty.

(c) Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com

Denial does not diminish God. God is advancing His eternal cause and divine purposes. The struggle is intensifying ....

2007-10-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

When the children of Israel started to multiply in Egypt, Pharaoh tried to stop it all through the midwives, but when that failed, he slaughtered the firstborn sons of Israel. It was a calamitous time in Jewish history, but not for the last time. During the time of Esther, Haman sought to destroy the Jews again, as did Herod at the birth of Messiah.

Then less than seventy years ago, Hitler wiped out six million Jews, something that Iran's president Ahmadinejad has conveniently denied, despite the freshness and veracity of physical, photographic, written and verbal evidence.

Of course this is not specifically a Jewish phenomenon. In Roman times, Christians were also persecuted and that too became a recurring theme of history. But where the evidence of God could not be prevented, men reverted to denial as they did in denying the resurrection of Jesus.

The modern world denies the concept of intelligent design even when the greatest minds of history acknowledge it, because to accept it is to be responsible to its implications. Denial is a very powerful force. I once faced a very painful truth that had been concealed from me, but was revealed through church leaders.

As the truth hit me I absolutely refused to believe it. Denial was immensely powerful and I was a first hand witness of that power. I just was not ready to cope with the truth, so my system suppressed it to spare me. As the truth slowly settled in my consciousness, I reverted to anger, withdrawal and gradual acceptance, the classic psychological cycle of trauma.

Now Pharaoh of Egypt was intimidated by the rise of the Hebrews and he and his successors chose to deny the call of God over the Hebrew nation. They defied God, brutalized the people and did everything to suppress the birth of that nation, the way the bourgeoisies denied the inevitable rise of the masses in the french revolution or the apartheid government of South Africa resisted the inevitable emancipation of Africans.

Unfortunately for Pharaoh, denial and suppression worked in the favor of the Hebrews, for it cemented their culture, held them together and multiplied their numbers. Eventually the nation was ready for a showdown with the Egyptian throne and the final curtain fell on the climactic moment of God's retribution for the killing of Israel's firstborn - the firstborn of Egypt died and the stranglehold of Pharaoh was broken. He tried once more to reclaim his already lost cause and God then destroyed him and his army in the Red sea.

When Herod slaughtered the innocents, he was not pursuing a nation, as such. Rather he was on the prowl for a king. Where Pharaoh had killed anything that looked remotely like a future nation or nation maker, Herod destroyed everything that looked remotely like a king. Hitler just simplified it all by destroying everything that didn't look Aryan, for his illusions of grandeur were so fragile that anything of substance posed a threat to his own dreams of a super race. But God kept his people anyway and they emerged from centuries of oppression to assume a very significant place in the world, whether the world liked it or not.

Even now the world is doing all it can to deny Israel its ancestral right to a sliver of land they call home and although that could hardly threaten the global status quo, it unfortunately looks too much like a king - so it must be stopped.

Now all this is just as true for us. The church is reaching a climax, where she will emerge from the nations as the bride of Christ: a warrior bride and the regal consort of Messiah in the consummation of this age. At an individual level, there is an increasing attack on any believer who looks like a king or a nation maker. There is a rising resistance against God's divine purpose for His people. God's purposes will prevail and the gates of hell will not, but don't be surprised when you find yourself cast into deep struggles and contradictions. Satan is out to stop anything that could threaten his own illusion of a godless world.

(c) Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com/

Time advances, never retreats. We live, we die, we laugh, we cry and learn too late how small we are, how little we know ...

2007-10-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

Clocks are progressive … they only go forward … well maybe sometimes they stand still when they run down or have no power left in them … depending on whether they are wind up or electronic gadgets. Like odometers they can be reset, and thereby made to effectively go backwards .. but that is cheating … whether you are male or female.

Okay so lets get more specific … time is progressive … it only advances, never retreats.

The courtiers of King Canute of England believed he could command the waves of the sea to retreat, but though he sat in his throne on a beach, the waves ignored him and the tide came in anyway. Kings cannot command the waves, any more than we can. Though engineers, like Dutch dyke builders succeeded in restraining the tides, they never stopped them.

And, no one, not even those who have used cosmetics, vitamins and oxygen tents to extend their lives have succeeded … not even old Methuselah who lived for about 970 years.

Okay, so much for the science lesson … so what now. Well actually you just aged by 2 minutes that’s what … if my “timeous” message has not yet added value to your life … well then you also just wasted 2 minutes of your short life.

A wise man put pebbles in a jar, with a pebble for each year of his expected 3 score and 10 year life. And then on each birthday he removed one, accepting that he might have some left when he eventually died … which would be unfortunate … or he might be able to put some pebbles back for each year he overshot his expected sell-by date. Then he made goals to ensure that each moment was well spent.

A less wise man was told by the doctor that he was going to die in 10 …. The patient appealed. “10 what?” he cried “Years, months ….” : “9, 8, 7 …..”

Generally we never see the time go by and we often wish it away. When my youngest was too young to be in grade 1, he yearned to be in grade 1, so he could do homework just like his brother, whilst his brother had actually moved on to the stage of wishing he could just reach the age where he could be allowed to watch Lord of the Rings. Both could not wait for their next birthdays … just the way I did as I ticked off the time to that moment when I would become a teen or an adult and then not have to do homework anymore. But when I arrived I just needed to wait for a car, a wife or something else.

I remember waiting 9 months, then 9 hours, then 9 minutes and finally 9 seconds for the triumphal shout “it’s a boy”.But whilst I was willing time on … I lost so many precious moments where I should have paused, slowed down and drunk in every experience. Now, I am trying to hold back time … but that seems to make it go faster … when we were kids it was too slow, now its too fast.

Recently I met someone I had worked with years before. We reminisced and commented on ageing … and we compared our time in the organization. 15 years for her. “If only that were my age” was her closing remark. But I closed by saying “its only a problem that you were once 15, if you also one day regret the loss of this very moment which you can still spend” (sounds like a pick up line – it wasn’t it was a put down line).

When I was at school, a teacher, wanting to teach a lesson about paying attention, gave us a little test … it said at the top “read all the questions before answering” – so we answered all the questions before reading.

The second last question, had we read it first, said, “only answer the last question”. Life is like that … we fail to get the point and then get presented with the only critical requirement at the end of life, when we will hear the words “the journey is more important than the destination”.

So for me I do find myself pushing back the one thing I can still manage … the invasion of my life priorities. Everyone demands my time … my job, my community, my club, my church … and all have merit. But I redraw my boundaries often to ensure that I do not miss moments of laughter and pleasure with my wife and children. And I also jealously guard my private moments, when I seek to be alone with God restoring my priorities. These are important.

As for my money … well bills must be paid, but I never regret “investing” money in memories and time with those I love. I can’t take it with me, so rather than let the taxman have it, why not buy some eternal memories … that I can take with me.

Well, now I have added another five minutes to your age …. I only hope you spent these moments well.

I leave you with a challenge from Confucius and I hope you will use it well, to add meaning to the times you have left: "What surprises you most about mankind?" Confucius answered, "They lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health. By thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live neither for the present nor the future and they live as if they will never die, and they die as if they had never lived..... "

(c) Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com/

Read the signs. They are put there for our benefit, not to be ignored ....

2007-10-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

One day, whilst on holiday, we drove into a remote part of our country. There were miles and miles of dry scrubland, semi-desert plains and forbidding mountains that stood vigil over the ghostly stillness of the region.

As we approached a turnoff to the 200 mile road that led towards the sea, we crossed a series of hazard bumps that had been drilled into the road surface. The car made a whining noise as it crossed the bumps, alerting us to what lay ahead. The road signs confirmed that a stop street lay ahead, but because it was so unexpected and rare in this forsaken region, the local authorities had put up a series of warning signs about the “STOP AHEAD”. That, in addition to the bumps in the road, provided adequate warning of what was coming.

I was so bemused by all of the signs that I lowered my window to look. I even roused my family from their sleepiness, to “look at all the signs”. Unfortunately, I was so busy watching the signs and ogling out of my window that we went straight through the actual stop street. My family roared with laughter and I imagined what the whole crazy scene probably looked like to someone watching from the roadside, someone like a cop that is.

As I drove on, I realized that sometimes in life we are so busy looking at the signs, that we miss the message or the point. Those who suffer declining health will acknowledge the signs but do nothing to prevent the inevitable disasters that lie ahead. Others may see very clear signs of a coming storm in their marriages or the lives of their children and yet deny the warnings until it is too late. Jesus pointed to the same phenomenon, when people asked for a sign: “You have the law and the prophets, listen to them”, He said on one occasion. Regarding His second coming, He said, “As you read the weather to tell when there is going to be a storm, so you will see the signs of my returning”.

God is unbelievably patient with people and nations, bringing judgment to fruition by small degrees. The changes in the world around us may seem almost imperceptible, but there is still compelling evidence that things are going wrong. God has even raised up people to warn us, people like Al Gore who warned of environmental disaster, James Dobson who cited many warnings about coming disasters in society and the family, and writers like Tim La Hay who interpreted the prophetic signs of our times.

Yet, we seem to have anaesthetized our culture into believing it will be okay. Unfortunately, as things have worsened the authorities have applied increasing controls and restraints on society, by degrees, to manage mob sentimentality and to keep us distracted from the real issues. It has succeeded in keeping us in denial and it has provoked our insecurities to elect leaders who are effective in exploiting our fears for their own gain.

God is almost shouting now. The angels have blown their trumpets and the heralds have declared their dire warnings. Is it not time for us to sit up and take things seriously? We are living in very heady times, but the signs are not for the amusement of passing tourists, they are there to warn us and to spare us of future disaster.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

A highway for God

2007-10-23T00:24:00.000-07:00

In the fullness of time, God sent His Son.

That fullness of time had many dimensions. The story of sin had to have been properly internalized by people, especially the people that God chose to use as His channel of revelation to the world. Without a well developed concept of sin, Calvary would have had limited meaning to anyone.

The centuries preceding the birth of Christ and His ultimate death on the tree, were also essential to His credentials - He had a profound pedigree, dating back thousands of years and including some of the greatest people that ever walked the earth.

There was also a practical reason. God knew that Calvary would hold little relevance to the world unless its implications could be communicated to the world, efficiently. So God waited until the Roman roads and a universal (Greek) language were established and then used those channels of communication to spread the Word. To help move things along, He also timed things to coincide with the sacking of Jerusalem, so that interrelated Jewish and Christian ideas could spread across the globe.

We have a new highway today. The greatest highway ever built is an electronic highway that runs around the earth right into the homes of billions of people of diverse cultures, credes and languages. It uses a common idiom (if not a common language), it is the uniting force of a new, connected culture and it is a fast, efficient medium for broadcasting rich content to everyone.

I am a great advocate of the Internet, but I think the church is still quite awkward about its potency and reach. I daily see very poor examples of communication from God's people, a people with so much good to say and do, so little time to say and do it in and yet with so many people to reach.

God is very strategic in His nature, always doing things with the long term in mind. I have no doubt that He would strongly advocate a strategic approach to this powerful channel, for the Kingdom's sake. However, despite some nasty areas in the Web, I also find that the Web community has a refreshing approach to community that is reminiscent of early biblical times.

In those days light also shone in the darkness and where sin abounded, grace did the much more abound. For as it is now, so it was then that believers had to thrive in the midst of a pagan and unbelieving culture.

The Internet is also wonderfully big-hearted. It is collaborative and generous in trading knowledge, ideas and things, largely for free. There is so much in the Web of such great value, that I am an avid fan. What other channel could enable me to reach you, wherever you are, almost as quickly as it took me to write or say what you are now reading. Yet in the spirit of the Internet what you have now received came to you free, gratis, without conditions, just because that is how things work here.

So, if I am to advise you on marketing your writing, let me start by saying "GET CONNECTED". Find out all you can about this great channel, log onto blogger.com and get on the bus for free and lets start talking to this brave new world of ours.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

2007-10-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

On 20 October 2007, the South African rugby Springboks lifted the William Webb Ellis world cup from England. Blood that once flowed red flowed green and South Africans enjoyed a moment of sublime bliss. Everyone joined in the celebrations - it was awesome. I have never known a moment of such personal relief and national wonderment.

Its strange how so many people can become so engrossed in what used to be a pig's bladder, but is now an oval ball (bigger than the gridiron ball), where gentlemen watch thugs trade blows on a large green field (as opposed to soccer, where thugs watch gentlemen in what is called the "beautiful game").

But rugby is enthralling. It is a legalised war between nations and teams, legitimate thuggery between some of the strongest, fittest and slickest athletes in the world.

Evidently a rugby team at Fort Brag in the US, challenged the base gridiron team to a game of rugby - the latter was so exhausted and beaten up afterwards that the rugby players commanded enduring respect, for unlike gridiron, rugby doesn't stop for adbreaks, dancing girls or to bring on a fresh team. It is a fluid, running, energetic and exceedingly demanding game that demands great ball skills, imagination, intense skills and a total team effort - it reflects the diversity of a modern army, with infanty (fronts), artillery (half-backs) and snipers (backs).

What stood out for me in the climax to World Cup 2007, was the value of two outstanding principles: territory and possession. The team that commands these two variables, will almost always win.

It reflects on a biblical principle, one that Joshua and David and others appreciated so well: the promises of God must be occupied, possessed and dominated. We must drive out the enemy and never lower our guard and we must never drop the ball to surrender possession of our priceless heritage to the world or to our spiritual foe. Getting to heaven is a war that will be won by those who are (forgive me) "bloody minded" enough to run their race with defiant patience, holding on to the end, never giving up - until they hear the great words, "well done" and receive the prize for overcoming.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

We have peace in our times ...

2007-10-18T18:22:00.000-07:00

Al Gore, the distinguished ex-vice-president of the US, as he likes to put it, was given the nobel peace prize for 2007, shared with the UN. It is a very noble prize, right up there with the highest accolades that we as humans can give to our fellows. It is also very well deserved, for this man has almost single-handedly alerted the world to the seriousness of global climate issues.

I accept that audiences who have seen "An Inconvenient Truth" differ in their responses to his views, but the world is more alert to the state of the planet and the risks facing humanity, thanks to his efforts.

As he points out, Churchill had a similar go at arousing the British people to the threat facing his own generation from the awakening giant of Germany. Churchill, not a modest man, said on the night he was asked to lead the country, something like "now we are getting somewhere" - at least his words had teeth, not like Neville Chamberlain's toothless idea of "peace in our times".

But aside from the perils facing our global climate and the threats of terrorism, a threat as comparable as a single mosquito is to household, there is another voice crying in the wilderness. If you follow middle-east news, Israeli PM Ehurt Olmert has been warning of a crisis of third world war proportions in the middle east. Other issues of biblical proportion are also making the news: the threat of avian flu, an increase in tropical storm frequency and intensity, instability in the earth's crust, the decline of the nuclear family, the proliferation of social unrest and crime, the US mortgage market meltdown, global economic crises ... the list goes on.

I wonder ... at what point will we actually admit we may have a problem. Have we become like Ostriches, buried in our own excrement. The world is in a mess, yet materialism has induced such comfortable denial and apathy, that we are only likely to see the crisis when its too late.

I have heard speeches and seen movies that keep you laughing until a punch-line slumps us straight in the middle of a serious reality, forcing us to stop smiling and start thinking seriously. Well right now people are living it up, having fun, living dangerously and wandering around with rather ignorant smiles .... ahem!, methinks a big punch-line will hit soon and everyone will suddenly find themselves in a very serious reality, but by then it will probably be too little, too late.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

Pillars of the earth

2007-09-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

Hey cut that out!!

When my boys were small, my wife and I acted out the Good Samaritan for them. Paula played the victim whilst I narrated and played the other roles. The boys watched, wide eyed and delighted, until I said “and bandits rose up and attacked the traveler” – then I “pretended” to attack Paula. Little eyes widened further … they shouted “stop -hitting - mom”. Then, as one man, they attacked me. In their innocence, they had taken a stand for something precious to them … and the Good Samaritan had taken on a whole new meaning.

We will also need to take a stand for those things that are most precious to our world.

The twin towers

3000 years ago, Samson tore down the two key pillars of a Philistine temple – I can’t imagine a whole building so critically dependent on two pillars, but Samson really brought down the house. On 11 September 2001, the twin towers of the WTC fell. In both cases, a lot depended on just two key pillars, but they were only made of stone. More substantial social pillars define our culture – and that’s what we need to defend.

The pillars of the earth

The Totem pole was the cultural pillar of North American Indians – under starlit skies, they danced to their drums and chants, their shadows mixed with flames to evoke images that would burn long and bright in their memories. Each Totem told its own story to the generations that followed, preserving their culture.

The Cavemen before them sheltered in caves from marauding beasts and hostile climates, clinging to the fragile hopes that would lead them out of darkness into the dawn of human history. Rock paintings were their totems, that told the stories of long forgotten conquests, of fire and ice and life and death.

The Jews carried their sacred symbols across scorching deserts, symbols that recalled their past and assured their future. After AD44, though dispossessed of all that defined them, the Diaspora preserved their festivals, invested their children and cast their symbols in pillars of heart and mind, to ensure the most durable culture of history.

Bette Midler sang “from a distance, God is watching us” and indeed 2000 years ago, a small distance above the ground, a seed fell to bring life to many. In his novel “Pillars of the Earth”, Ken Follet wrote how stonemasons committed their life work to build the great stone churches of mediaeval Europe, but those towering structures could never define or preserve the Christian faith, as did a simple, wooden cross or the word engraved in the hearts of believers.

Pillars of stone

It will take comparable pillars to sustain us. In 1776, at the birth of the US Republic, John Adams said, “Fear is the foundation of most governments”. George Washington on the other hand said that our social pillars are “Virtue, Morality and Religion”. These are all somewhat contrived and can neither sustain nor define us.

Yet there remains a cry for the kind of timeless values that go to the heart of our culture. 1964 presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, confirmed our need to “return to proven ways, not because they are old, but because they are true”.

So, in keeping with the theme, I searched for two pillars of timeless relevance and opted for “Truth and Grace”. They are biblically based, which gives them authority. But they are also relevant to all cultures, creeds and nations.

What is truth? To set us free, truth must define us and be a high, fixed point of reference - it is a constitution greater than the whim or expedience of men. But truth without grace, or love for our fellow man is crude, without soul, devoid of justice. Yet now truth stumbles in the streets and the love of many grows cold, devaluing men, women, children, nations and the world itself, both socially and environmentally.

Pillars of God

When they attacked my interpretation of the Good Samaritan, my sons stood for values, for truth - and they were right. But the story they were meant to understand was about grace or compassion - which is equally right. The Samaritan was defined by his culture and values, but that only had significance when he crossed the line and used the vehicle at hand, his donkey, to serve his fellow man.

Christian values are sustained by what the bible refers to as the "pillars of the house of God". By implication those are the ministries given to the church, which function through two channels, the spoken and written word. They are the custodians of the faith, for by such means have the truths and traditions of our spiritual fathers been faithfully preserved and passed onto this generation.

As pillars we are equipped with the ministry of reconciliation. We have a message, a voice, the tools of communication and various platforms. As Roman roads and a universal language (Greek) enabled the dissemination of the gospel to the early world, we have electronic highways that can reach the whole earth, instantaneously. With these, we can not only help to restore and defend the values that define us, but we can also help to build bridges, bring healing and be a light in the darkness, a voice of reason in an age of unreason.

This brings the role of writers into striking relief. As great authors articulated our faith through the recorded scriptures, so it now falls to writers to preserve those, interpret and transfer them to current and future generations. Our calling is noble, for we support the pillars of our faith, truth and grace.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com

The heart of communication

2007-08-29T02:43:00.000-07:00

'No, not me, I cannot speak … I have trembling lips and a stuttering tongue. Send another to speak for me'. Despite his capacity to lead or his courage, education, refinement and noble bearing, Moses was preoccupied by his inability to speak eloquently: the kind of thing that normally limits our own expression.

As I expand on this contradiction, I hope to inspire you to a cause greater and nobler than mere speaking. I speak of communication and leadership. We grow up learning to speak, but life equips us to communicate and lead.

My first observation is that Moses understood the context of his life. He fled from the familiar into a wilderness, where he gazed out across the plains by day and the stars by night. Only then did he see his own world in context – and then he understood that Egypt was not an end, just a means to an end – it was the forging furnace of the nation. Context challenges the status quo and causes us to sound the cry of change, resulting in the kind of communication that enables people to see their lives differently.

Thus when we communicate context to our audience, they in turn are transformed. An audience that is enslaved, as the Jews were, can only really be set free when they see their chains in the context of ignorance and fear, rather than some unchangeable fact.

Its been said that when the people are ready, the leader will emerge. As Moses reframed the context of the Jews, they listened, and as they listened their courage and resolve grew until they finally threw off their chains and followed him out of Egypt.

My second observation about Moses was his commitment. With a heart forged through years of ambiguity and isolation, Moses the “non-speaker” emerged to lead a rabble of disenfranchised, restless and landless souls to nationhood, within a space of 40 years. In spite of being raised as a Prince of Egypt, he turned his back on privilege and identified with his own people, so laying down his life in service. He set off on his career with absolute clarity about whom he was and what he had to do.

Context defined his cause, but commitment gave him momentum. It enabled him to find possibilities in a wilderness of impossibilities. Knowing what to do next is desirable, but commitment will find a way anyway, to lead people from darkness, frustration and imprisonment … to life and light.

What we are is less relevant than what we could be. What we were is less relevant than what we will be and our potential is less relevant than our actions. Commitment to a cause is the engine of a great communicator – it drives them to make telling connections. Commitment touches lives - talk only touches minds.

It is also what inspires commitment in an audience – after all, how will they follow if they do not believe, and how can they become committed to your message, if you are not committed to your cause.

Finally I observe how Moses differentiated voice from content.

As a prince, he had access to Pharaoh and as a Jew he had access to the hearts of his people – he also had access to God – yet he remained concerned with a technical limitation, his voice. And so it was his message and the authority behind that message that really shook his culture. And indeed truly great communication is much more about what we say, than how we say it. In fact it sometimes may be more powerful to say nothing … sometimes a touch or a gesture can communicate what no words can ever do.

If context provides a destination and commitment provides momentum – then we will find our message, and when we find our message we will find a way to communicate it. In much the same way, a moving vehicle can be steered far better than a stationary one. Context and Commitment beget Content and out of these will come the craftsmanship of the great Communicator.

This is well illustrated by the story of a great orator who was asked to speak to an audience … he appealed for a topic, until an old man stood and asked him to recite Psalm 23. He agreed, on condition that the old man did the same. Then he spoke with great eloquence and the applause was rapturous. Finally the old man spoke, but when he finished speaking there was no applause, just silence and many moist eyes … the orator then said: “I know the shepherd’s psalm, but this man knows the shepherd”.

He recognised that great oratory was not about delivery or reputation or style … it is a matter of heart. The old man rose in humility and a life which overflowed with experience and meaning, to speak to hearts and make a telling impact.

I have observed many communicators who were commended for technical skills, but I found all too often that their content was canned, clichéd, good for entertainment. I call that Hyperglycaemic because it lifts us to a quick high and then lets us down. What people need is a message that will resonate through hearts, minds and cultures … and there is only one way to embark on such communication – it must be birthed in the heart.

A flame has the ability to burn constantly. It does not lose any of its power when it lights another candle. What sustains it is fuel. And likewise, a message born in the heart, committed to service and relevant to its context, is a flame that has the sustenance to burn long and bright … and to ignite the hearts of others without ever losing its own power. That is the soul of great communicators, inlcuding writers, speakers, webmasters and counsellors.

(c) Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com/