Essential Church (139)

It has always struck me that in places where churches function in less comfort, amongst increased persecution or with minimal resources, our friends become increasingly focussed and intentional to walk obediently in the fruitful mission of God. This may feel incongruous to our mindset when we come from comfortable "large" churches with "well established" programs, big budgets and where "intended goals" are presented with the finesse of an APPLE product launch. When the future is so "mapped out", flexibility is limited, change cannot be nimble but is often considered extensively, energy zapping and complex. This in itself raises the questions of stewardship and the fundamental issue of how much we are following God's lead in the circumstances he has placed us in, and how much we are expecting him to get on board with ours. However, there are 3 other distinct advantages of being in a bare bones church where your back is truly up against the wall and you are living hand to mouth to prioritise core essential church.

1) Unity is so fundamentally essential that disrupters, false teachers, selfish consumers, and deceptive practices are such a liability that they are not unduly entertained, but unanimously dealt with by the entire community (if willing for restoration 2 Cor 2:5-8) or shown the exit without delay if disruption grows (Titus 3:10-11). A special forces division emerges for accurate coordination of spiritual operations.  

2) Mobilisation happens naturally. In intensification of the spiritual battle The Spirit of God equips his people who walk in obedience and faith. This is attractional. Everyone wants to work, no-one sits around waiting to be asked, waiting to be defeated, and all are willing to be redirected. Cost of self sacrifice is relative when the consequences of defeat or capture are considered. 

3) Love: The counterculture of Christ at work is so obvious when the stench of opposition and hatred towards the church is so destructive and damaging to people. This prompts a binary approach, either I am on the side of spiritual life or death. Either I love God's people with all that I have, and love those without Christ through sacrifice, or I am being compliant with the infiltration of the enemy who seeks to divide, breed suspicion, distrust and inertia. When caught in the crossfire of two tribes at war, there is no place to hide for neutrality. Those who fight for Christ, gather the artillery of love together, and amass those skilled in protracted bombardments of kindliness to lead them. Mortar bombing of grace is hard to withstand. Transparency, integrity and authenticity in grace come from the commander.  

Essential church in the spiritual trenches means shared provision, owned vision, unconditional trust, and a constant supply of the Spirits enabling. Patience in affliction (Romans 12:2), right motivation, eternal perspective (Psalm 90:2, Hebrews 12:1-3), the many dying without Christ (Luke 15:4)  (Matthew 9:35-38) are natural prayer topics. No-one needs to set a time or order of service, everyone is of one heart and mind. Those who gather are led by God. There is nothing more essential or glorious. (Psalm 37)

In this context we pray for our brothers and sisters. May the LORD give you essential provision, for essential fruitfulness, for this critical battle in the war of eternity which has already been won. May he in turn bless us with clarity to live in the same way. 

New conscripts welcome:

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, he King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honour and eternal dominion. Amen.

1 Tim 6:11-16

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing...

2 Cor 2: 14-15

 

Museums are taking "essential items" into storage... read about it here in TIME. 

Whilst Churches are motivated to protection, continuing to be historical monuments to the past, they will like the museum... closed for gospel business in the spiritual battle, busy reshuffling things in storage where no one can witness or be impacted what is going on. Where the church finds itself on the battle frontlines of eternity... its immediate task will always be attending to the many wounded (a hospital for the broken hearted), going into "no mans" land (frontier mission), and engagement with the battle of grace (ready to take up spiritual arms for the capturing of lives) with a sense of urgency. 

True strength in the battle: knowing that God's unfailing love is with us, and helping us play the score with joy.

SINGING WITH THE SUFFERING. 

Masterclasses from those who know how to sing through suffering.  

I was so helped Sunday morning by a sister in Christ sharing a scripture God had laid on her heart. It means all the more knowing what this very precious older sister (who has shrunken small in height, but grown humungous in heart) has gone through in life. She has become better not bitter through suffering. Her faithful generosity and prayer are fruits multiplied through many autumnal seasons of pruning through troubled times. Seasoned character is always the greatest encouragement to others, and seasoned veterans of the spiritual battle know the prepossessing self control of when to get appropriately excited and when not to. In this event... the excitement was genuine and appropriate, on Psalm 33 and the contextual encouragement PS33 is to Ukrainian believers and all who currently struggle for Christ around the world. 

Psalm 33: Singing alone in suffering ?

The OT subject matter is the apparent weakness of God's people, as they depend on the guaranteed greater strength of God. How true and apt this is for many believers around the world today who live in the context of human arrogance, which revels in inflicting pain on the church with a desire to isolate individuals, curtail church growth or stamp it out. Invariably persecution has the opposite effect. Those who suffer for Christ sing incongruously sweet songs, and not alone... but with the accompaniment and inspiration of heaven. (ACTS 16:25-26). Paul and Silas where accompanied by a rhythm section from heaven which literally shook the place. There is no doubt that the song of worship and surrender to God (sung in suffering) resonates with heaven, the sufferings of the risen Christ himself and therefore heaven does not hesitate to join in. Many Psalms of suffering are the songs of Christ, only truly understood through the lens of Christ and his sufferings.  

The King of heaven leads the song of Joy. 

Christ our forerunner and choirmaster leads the song of victory in heaven. He alone is worthy to lead the song of God's sovereignty in history and creation, which weaves through suffering to glory. 

True joy is found in our God regardless of circumstance. The character of our unchangeable God means that every day is a day appropriate for praising him even if it is behind bars, or under torture, (or suffering with covid), as we follow Christ. He assures that he is with his people as they sing, every day. Appropriate expression of that joy and praise rightly comes from our deepest being, as we try to express the infiniteness of our creator, (the one true, living,  eternal God) even in our finite frames. The psalmist was right to express this joy "skilfully" (intelligently) and "loudly" (noisily / "shoutingly/ powerfully/ forcefully") through gifted music. How else can you express appropriate multidimensional worship to the one who is the maker of the cosmos  (v3, 6-9)?. How can we appropriately mirror or articulate his majesty even in times of total freedom ? It needs the intricate, dynamic range and might of an orchestra, plugged into the power of a rock PA arrays, whilst multitudes of African drums beat in polyrhythm. Even with the sub bass turned right up to 11, it is still only a pale reflection of God's might,  creative diversity, and unequalled explosive capacity.

 I fear us Brits often whimper in praise about the God for whom volcanic eruptions are but a sniffle of creations' total power, which is itself  only the residue of his creative power and incomparable to his redemptive power and what will be revealed. (1 Cor 2:9). Maybe we do contrite, reflective, quietness ok in most Uk churches???... but exuberant (world music) celebration not so easily. For brits who have never worshipped outside of their hydroponic and artificial comfort of their homeland, heaven might be a bit of a culture shock.  

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 

REVELATION 21:1-3

True and faithful, righteous and just, this is he whom we worship. He has already written the end of the story for all believers before our existence, at the cross and in his resurrection.  Sadly however we live in a culture which is not true, faithful, righteous, and just, but one which is false and abusive, sinful and corrupt. This is where our self control and sense of perspective needs to grow, our patience to wait for His day needs to be stretched to expand,  and our maturity and perseverance needs to shine. Whilst our hearts want to shout about God now, there are times in a waiting world of injustice where the loudest shouts will come from the self confidence of mankind so full of himself. Don't be fooled however, man at his loudest is nothing compared to God at his quietest. 

Here the psalmist would love an orchestra with myriads of players, but he is alone with his 10 stringed lyer (the best virtuoso instrument of the day), and what he is lacking in orchestration he makes up for in skill and volumes of genuine joy in private worship. The LORD is with him (v22) and this is where the true multidimensional volume is found, as he plugs into God. As he plays his solo part it is grafted in by the master orchestrator of unfailing love throughout the generations into an eternal symphony which resonates across the cosmos and every corner of history. The same LORD is faithfully with us today, whatever we are going through. 

The need to bite our tongues as believers has never been so great, (the need to play faithful solo lines according to the conductors orchestration), because the self assertion of world leaders in our day has never been so confident and desired to be so loud and overbearing (Matt 24:6-13). The longer we await the Lords' return, the louder and more overconfident human rule seems to get, the greater the discord, the malaise of noise and less melody or music. However, the last word won't be restraint, the last word won't be ours or any mans ...but his, and then the true volume will come from him. No other voice will be heard in that moment. Therefore, we can learn to keep publicly quiet sometimes knowing that vengeance is his and not ours, and that private devotion can never be taken away even by the most overbearing human dictator. Man will not remove the melody of God written in the hearts of his people.

What brings this reality into sharp focus are situations like Ukraine, where pastors are being kidnapped, and relatives of pastors taken if church leaders cannot be found. It is a season where there are many countries (which we can't specify here) unitedly included on a joint "special mission" to silence God's people. The blog stats display how many friends will be reading this from such countries, and we want you to know that we are so praying with you and for you with a sense of great privilege. Your faithfulness is delight to us, and we are truly humbled by your fellowship, we love you.  There is a boisterousness overconfidence of those current world leaders who hate the children of God, and believe that if they could shout loud enough they should be able to drown out the praise of God and the shout of victory from heaven. Even if you can proudly strut and shout (even with phosphorus and hypersonic bombs), you will not be able to delete God, blot out his eternal people, or their eternal praise. See psalm 33...

v16-17 remind us of the vanity and impotence of self confidence found in God's enemies.

v18-19 remind us of the security of those who live knowing that his gaze is upon us. He will provide, so that even in days of famine we will feel full. 

This word is for our day, our world, and friends who suffer. 

We wait in hope for the Lord;

    he is our help and our shield.

21 

In him our hearts rejoice,

    for we trust in his holy name.

22 

May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,

    even as we put our hope in you.

So friends who live under the constant noise and scars of man's destructive rule, we pray for your self control to wait, and our characters to learn from you. Waiting (v22) is not weakness, however unproductive it appears. This is not a show of impotence but true strength and might in God as you depend on him to work in you and through you. This is the suppression of a coiled spring which will one day be released and show its true uncontainable power, the longer it waits the greater the effect. 

We pray that you will be conscious of his help and protection nanosecond by microsecond. We pray that in the terror and sorrow, your hearts might still rejoice in him, and when you can't trust a word an invader or despot speaks, your hearts will grow in trust of him who has only ever been, and will forever be holy and true. We rejoice that your hope is in one who will never, ever, let any of us down, and together with you we put our hope, invest our futures and place our eternal joy and security in the hands of him who will have the last and eternally resonating word. 

Photos for prayer news 138

The true beauty in the international new community. (Part 1)

 "they were all together in one place...(v1)...

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved."

ACTS 2 (ESV)

More profound than the barbarism and extreme subhuman behaviour of those who torture, bomb and starve, has been the beauty of the international family of Jesus Christ seen in the world theatre and stage spotlight of Ukraine during the last 3 weeks.

Prior to the scattering of God's people  (ACTS 2), the church was in one place physically, ideologically and functionally. As their transparent love for each other became known it authenticated the countercultural news they preached (John 13:35) that there is one who unites people beyond all boundaries and polarities of culture (Gal 3:28), one who brings; order out of chaos, dignity out of despair, joy out of desolation, and a bright future for those facing a destiny of doom. Only in Christ is this truly possible and manifoldly exercised by the pivotal historical events of his death and resurrection. 

One of the great ironies of the "progress" of the last 20 years and the process of  globalisation is that people are now segregating across the world into dysfunctional tribalism. The very thing that offered unification now separates. We have never been more connected technologically (cyber warfare, international banking, crypto, blockchain etc included) yet disconnected sociologically and ideologically (SWIFT or SPFS, APPLE or Huawei, NATO or...).

Our world cries out (literally) for positive connection between human beings. This can only be found when we are reconnected with the one who connects all humanity, in his creation, his salvation and his plan of redemption. (see part 2).

3 Observations about the beauty of the church working together internationally.

1) OUR WORLD NEEDS TO SEE TRANSPARENT GENEROSITY AND SELFLESSNESS at work.

Private and public beauty.

There is a sense in which we (followers of Jesus Christ) need to be subversive in generosity (Matt 6:4) so that people do not see us. Rather than searching for our generosity be seen, our appropriate grace driven generosity comes from the giver of all good things. Our contentment is nothing other than the fact that God sees that our hearts mirror Christ and what we have received from God in him. Our desire is to point to the one who has changed our heart from selfishness by his  selflessness and worship him in appropriate and exclusive offering of love and obedience. (Eph 5:2). 

However, one of the ordinances of God for the new community is also the public dimension of displaying counter culture. We are sometimes poor at maintaining this balance appropriately, forgetting that we have been given the express role by The Director, to perform for him with his help within the drama of this world.  The histrionics of broken humanity play out every day, and we are here to counter act for this purpose, and to point to a better way under Christ, that there is a different blue print for humanity. A foretaste of the world to come under his control (Deut 1:25, 1 Cor 15:22. 1 Cor 5:19, Rev 21:1-2) can be tangibly viewed in marriage (Eph 5:22-33) or roles of responsibility in civil governance (Eph 6:1-9), but we forget that roles of generosity also fit into this category (Gal 6:10)  (Gal 6:2) of displaying profound union with Christ. 

 

Note...

"In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." (Matt  5:16).

• The church represents the kingdom of light (Matt 5: 14-15), we are designated ambassadors  (2 Cor 5:20) of the one who is light of the world (John 8:12) . 

2) IN THE AGE OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS, PUBLIC CHRISTLIKENESS ON A SMALL STAGE OF CRISIS HAS WIDE GLOBAL IMPACT. God put us in this place for such a time as this. 

In the context of a "crooked and depraved" world Phil 2:14-15 then, the church is the agent of transparency and true beauty. We should never be bashful or ashamed of this. When we work together in the worst and most broken of contexts, (with the best of motives for Christ's glory alone and in his strength), we are seen as trustworthy, true and healthily (appropriately) admired. This is true not just in the locality/ on the ground but wherever (globally) the good news story percolates. Whilst pride must be checked (Jer 17:9) , there is also a sense in which we should not feel awkward about this but instead praise God for it. This has opened many opportunities and bridges for the gospel in Ukraine over recent days, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal,  Iraq, Iran, China.. the list goes on. Wherever God's people act in unity and generosity the gospel advances. In some cultures this has to be more private due to governmental control, and here it shines all the brighter, but when we have freedom to be generous nothing should stop us publicly overflowing in the love of Christ. 

3) WE SHOULD BE CAREFUL HOW WE STEWARD, AND USE RESOURCES FOR THE GLORY OF CHRIST THROUGH THE GLOBAL FAMILY OF GOD. 

In the last few days we have teams working from several countries, from several denotations (tribes)in numerous crisis situations , but all are one in Christ Jesus. In this sense we are "in the same place". All we have comes from him, and all we are is for him. 

For me personally ...several questions of conscience arise out of this. Although I am keen to see any "appropriate aid" go from any "successful" or "efficient" organisation to any hurting humanity made in the image of Christ, I have become increasingly aware of three realities.

1) Secular organisations serve other ultimate purposes, than the glory of Christ and therefore by definition are happy to only pass on 20-40% of a donors funds and spend the rest on administration and their own future in this world. They also do not show the same transparent unity on the ground. 

2) Some self proclaimed "Christian" parachurch organisations can exist for themselves in the sense that their primary goal is building a future for themselves as an organisation. They may be run by believers, and they appear united with believers but are not necessarily transparent and largely act in isolated projects for limited periods of crisis (on which they thrive as parasites). Ask two important questions... a) How does an organisation serve the local church? b) What percentage of the giving goes to the end user / how great is the cut of "administration" / "operations" ? If this is not transparent to the giver, don't give !

3) GOSPEL NETWORKS TYPICALLY GET PROPORTIONALLY LITTLE FUNDS IN A CRISIS. Relatively, very few aid organisations are distributing aid through local believer networks for local community impact under the protracted (generational) plan and gospel banner of Christ. Many believers still support aid agencies that spend more on TV advertising and have higher profiles of marketing. Aid organisations which promote psycobabble (" a new day", "fresh start", "to help people be their best selves" "transformational"  etc. but conveniently leave off the name of Jesus Christ from all publicity are in my experience unlikely to be in tune with God's eternal purposes in Christ.  

What we are looking for is to help the global family of Christ to be encouraged in their calling at the darkest of times. If you find a great agent - back it to the hilt. This is a holistic cross denominational work, accompanied by the declaration of the only answer for all human beings... Jesus Christ . Aid (however it is transported) can only be truly "efficient"  with accountability and without favouritism, through long standing / established (biblically submissive) church governance that is in place. Just because a network is attached to a denomination does sadly not guarantee that it isn't corrupt or driven by human ambition. Look for those who will continue to preach and make disciples long after the aid convoys disappear, those who had a track record of doing so long before the crisis started. 

Whatever's right for you before God in issues of conscience is good for me. For the reasons (of personal conscience) above I have chosen to dedicate my time, money and energy to ACTION.  I praise God for those who set this up as a servant of the worldwide family of Christ, and honour those who have gone before in serving the local church in over 40 nations with this one goal... the glory of Christ.I praise God too for other groupings of God's people who serve in this way for the global kingdom of Christ through the local church. May future generations see this unity at work, and see many brought into the reality of new creation in Christ. 

LORD GLORIFY YOUR NAME ALONE, and help us as the global family of Christ to unite in this purpose. 

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The best of teams: representing Ukraine, Poland, UK and USA working with many denominations. 

This Van is a thing of beauty, given by compassion and generosity, packed with love (and genius) , driven to where people are going away from., received where most needed most, by those who will give accountably for the glory of Jesus Christ. 

A few of great young people being so helpful and working together , 

A few of our good friends who made it to the border today because of everyone working so well together...

A few friends in a different hub location who came from a Kherson village which no longer exists....

A brilliant tool used by a brilliant team of evangelistic pastors for sharing the love of Jesus Christ with military men who are working hard to protect people. Here is a generator to provide hot tea and coffee... the perfect time to talk about what really matters in life, and death and eternity. Pray for even more of this, hearts are opening and awakenings are happening in the most unlikely and improbable of places... but all orchestrated in God's timing. 

Update 133

"For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

Col 1: 13-14

"When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. "

Col 2 :13-15

There is great unfathomable mystery in the providence and mercy of God. In many ways both the goodness of God and the depth of suffering in our broken and rebellious humanity (both of which God has contained within his grasp and plan of salvation), illustrate that his ways are way beyond our ways. (ISA 55:8-9) In the darkest of cosmic moments (MARK 15:33) we see our Saviour pay in entirety for our Sin, and defeat all God’s enemies. When all hope seems lost we see an empty tomb.  

Jonathan Edwards put it this way…

“There would be no manifestation of God’s grace or true goodness, 

if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from.” 

The polarity of good and bad in our own personal and wide world experience is beyond our understanding. Yet, God has ordained that both be contained within his plans, and in his sovereign grip of grace He works salvations’ redemptive purposes within the weave of this complex tapestry. 

The update and prayer requests of the last few days illustrates the poles of life’s incomprehnsible spectrum, the depth of God’s mystery. In this though we are more convinced than ever, that God is working his purposes out for his glory.

Romans 8: 37.

 No, in all these things 

we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 

We pray for Dianna, the family and our precious friends in the churches. 

We praise GOD for such a servant and man of Christ, full of compassion and grace.

We Praise God for the wheels which minister love, and servants who bring happiness.

We praise God for new life and a growing family of grace ! 

131 THE ANSWER FOR THE HUNGRY AND HURTING