Today’s Photos
I missed out on the time slot when I would normally go biking or walking this afternoon.
To make up, I ran outside with my camera right on sunset and took a few photos from close to our house.
Reflection on Acts 7:55-60
Scripture
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus sitting in the place of honour at God’s right hand.
Observation
Stephen stands before the Sanhedrin. At the end of his testimony, the Jewish leaders are enraged. Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, sees the glory of God. He tells them, “I see the Son of Man at God’s right hand.”
The leaders drag Stephen off to be stoned. The accusers give their coats to Saul to be minded.
As they stone him, Stephen calls out to Jesus to receive his spirit and then, as he dies, for mercy for his killers.
Application
The gospel upsets people for all kinds of reasons. Some don’t want to be confronted by sin, others don’t want to be confronted by grace, and still others fear that the gospel will somehow stop them from making money from sin.
While we should not go looking for opposition or persecution, we should not be surprised when it comes.
Even so, we need to remain gracious to those who oppose us, seeking to bring them to a knowledge of Jesus.
Prayer
Father, give grace to all who are facing death or violence because of their love for you. May their tormentors be moved by your love. Amen.
Ray Ortlund- It multiplied
It multiplied
So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Acts 9:31
I’m not against strategic plans. I’m for them. They have their place, as a matter of wise stewardship. But they cannot generate the astonishing outcomes described in the book of Acts.
I remember hearing Michael Green at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974. He asked us, Why don’t we see anywhere in the book of Acts a man-made strategic plan for evangelizing the world? His answer: They didn’t have one.
What then did they have? Two things, for starters: the fear of the Lord, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
In the fear of the Lord, they were teachable, they were humble, they were listening to the gospel, they were open and grateful and easily bendable. They did not have a spirit of self-assurance. They were eager to learn and grow and change in any way the Lord wanted them to.
In the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were gladdened, they felt forgiven, they were reconciled to God and reconciling with one another. They saw their sins and failures, but they also saw the far greater reality of Jesus crucified for them. To put it in a secular way, they couldn’t believe their luck.
Openness in a know-it-all world, comfort in an angry world – that ancient world simply could not resist these heaven-sent powers. So the church didn’t just grow, it multiplied.
Those early churches had no master plan for their future. But they were walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and it worked.
Church growth takes planning. Let’s do it. But church multiplication takes miracle. Let’s be open to what only God can do.
Today’s Sermon
Words and Worship
Over the last few months I have attended a couple of funerals which left me feeling somewhat disappointed in that while they were led by a pastor and each contained a hymn and a Bible reading, they felt decidedly secular.
I’ve had this experience a few times when attending funerals and weddings conducted by Pentecostal and evangelical pastors. There has been total focus on the human subject (the deceased or the bride and groom) but very little attention to Jesus or the gospel.
Rather than conducting a distinctively christian service which glorifies the Lord, they seem to have taken a secular ceremony and added a christian element to it.
The heart of the problem is this: in rejecting formal orders of service to be more “contemporary” or “relevant” we inevitably end up being indistinguishable from the world.
A written liturgy with formal prayers and declarations allows us to both worship the Lord and honour the people we are celebrating. The liturgy doesn’t have to be inflexible or in King James English. It does allow us to think about what needs to be said and how to say it.
There is a balance between the type of liturgy that is unchanging and said by rote and one that is flexible. I remember one person at a funeral I conducted saying, “At least we knew who we were burying not like when that other lot do them.”
I think that many pastors would do well to follow a more formal order of service rather than throwing together a bunch of things that they think should happen on the day. Above all else, the gospel must be preached on every occasion or else we are failing in our calling.
Apostolic Summit 2014
Each year, about this time, we travel to Rockhampton for the annual Apostolic Summit, followed by the Sons’ Retreat.
This year the speakers were John Alley and Canadian Kenn Gill. This was Kenn’s second year at the Summit.
Kenn Gill
John used his sessions to talk about the end times and the need for pastors to teach clearly on this topic.
Kenn urged us to think and live apostolically, of which the first goal must be evangelism. We must find our “Jerusalem” and fill it- that is determine our immediate mission field and ensure that everyone is aware of the gospel.
I love the Summit for the energetic worship, meeting old friends and great teaching.
After the Summit we go to the coast where we spend a couple of days with other pastors. While there is some teaching there is more emphasis on sharing together and prayer.
Burmese pastors
A feature this year was the presence of quite a few pastors from Myanmar, Indonesia and Africa. Their experiences are very different to ours. Pastor Suum, whom we got to know over the time of the Retreat, shared how he was badly beaten and left to die because of his faith in Christ.
Overall it was a very tiring time, but so worthwhile. I always come away feeling physically drained but spiritually recharged.
Selfies won’t stop Boko Haram
Selfies won’t stop Boko Haram
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Andrew Bolt
MAY092014(8:10am)
I did a lot of research on human trafficking and modern slavery before Mike Kupari and I wrote Swords of Exodus. It is a horrible, evil, and surprisingly gigantic thing. One thing I’m fairly sure of about the kind of people who do that sort of thing for a living, is that they really don’t give a s..t about a bunch of American movie stars taking pouty selfies of themselves holding up signs with hash tag give our girls back. The disapproval of fat, soft, Americans on Facebook really doesn’t move them. They care about getting paid or getting killed, that’s about it. The self-righteous pouting is useless.For the idiot libprog pussies with the selfies, the world is a violent place, filled with violent men. If you actually want something to be done about these evil people, maybe you shouldn’t bitch, whine, and moan every time our military takes action against evil people….
This kidnapping event made the news, but this sort of thing happens every day somewhere in the world. You’re shocked and outraged about this, but that just shows how little you know about the subject. There are plenty of outrageous acts of evil out there to choose from. You can take useless photos of yourself holding up a sign, but it will do nothing other than prove to your fellow idiots that you care so hard…
But if your selective outrage is really up in arms about this one, movie stars with the hash tag, I’ve got a simple solution for you. Take some of your millions of dollars and hire some mercenaries to go into Africa to shoot all the members of Boko Haram. I wonder how that would trend on Twitter. #gurkhaskillscumbags
The Left’s avoidance of the real issues here is startling. Last night on The Project former Democrats leader Natasha Stott-Despoja summed up the lessons to be learned from the kidnapping of more than 200 girls by an Islamist terrorist group that has declared war on Christians, murdered thousands of civilians and massacred boys whose “crime” was to go to school. According to Stott-Despoja, this should remind us that slavery was bad and girls’ education was important. No word about the dead schoolboys. And certainly no mention – again – of Islam.
This kind of thing is too much even for some stalwarts of the Left:
The Guardian, too, is now angry with its fellow travellors – although even it is still shy of the word “Muslim”:
Writers are typing with one eye over their shoulder: watching their backs to make sure that no one can accuse them of “demonising the other”.
Full article here
Gail Wallace- Why the Gender Debate is “Catching Fire”
Some very insightful commentary here on women and spiritual warfare
I recently saw the movie Catching Fire (released last November), which is based on the second book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games¹ trilogy, and it sparked the idea for this post, which first appeared on the CBE Scroll.
For those not familiar with the story, here’s the plot of “Catching Fire” in a nutshell.
[Spoiler Alert] After winning the 74th Hunger Games (a competition in which “tributes” are forced to fight to the death), protagonist Katniss Everdeen returns to her home in the post-apocalyptic nation of Panem. Because her defiant actions in the arena have fueled a rebellion against the oppressive Capitol, President Snow forces the remaining tributes to return to the arena for another round of competition.
There are many powerful moments, but one scene in particular had implications for the gender debate taking place in conservative evangelical circles today. Before Katniss sets out, her coach gives her this advice: “When you are in the arena, you remember who the true enemy is”. As the deadly games proceed, it becomes obvious that the government wants to make sure none of the tributes return alive, and this advice makes all the difference in the final outcome.
Remember who the true enemy is.
As the debate about women’s roles is played out in the arenas of church and society today, many Christians seem set on characterizing the issue as a conflict between men and women.
Men are accused of selfishly holding onto their privilege and power at all costs, and women are accused of wanting an equal share of that power for power’s sake. Some seem to think this is a zero sum game; meaning that men will lose something if they share their power with women, when in fact, both would gain.
Still others frame the issue as a conflict between Christians and secular society. The end result is often a barrage of “friendly-fire” with collateral damage to both sides.
Could it be that we’ve lost sight of who the true enemy is?
When we draw the lines of the battle so narrowly it’s easy to forget that there is another player in these “earthly games”, one whose role in the conflict is described in Genesis 3. After being cast out of heaven, Satan’s Plan B was to become the ruler over earth. So he entices Adam and Eve into disobeying God, thinking this will give him some kind of sovereign power over them2.
But instead God’s response is this: “…I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15b). It’s like God is saying “Don’t be too smug about your success here. From now on you will be the enemy of the woman and her offspring, and One will come from her who will crush your head”, a reference to the coming Christ.
Remember who the true enemy is.
Sometimes I think our preoccupation with the consequences of sin described for Eve (“your desire shall be for your husband, and he will rule over you”, Genesis 3:16b) causes us to underestimate the depth of Satan’s enmity towards women. Enmity means conflict. Enmity means anger and loathing and hatred.
We are naive when we fail to connect that enmity to the oppression of women that has taken place through the centuries and continues today.
As Paul reminds us, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). Satan knows that one way to hold back the Church is to marginalize and oppress women.
It will take the joint efforts of both women and men (empowered by the Holy Spirit) to overcome the impact of Satan’s enmity.
I believe this is a spiritual battle, not a secondary or cultural issue. Indifference or apathy only gives Satan the upper hand.
Men must recognize who the real enemy is and actively advocate for women.
Women must recognize who the real enemy is and prepare for battle by “armoring up” to stand against the devil’s schemes (Ephesians 6:10-18).
And we all need to pray earnestly for gender reconciliation in the church and in the world.
Let’s not forget who the true enemy is.
1The Hunger Games movies are not for the faint at heart. Here is a link to a review by Alissa Wilkinson in Christianity Today. Skip to the last page for information about violence (a lot), language (some), and sexuality (very little) portrayed in the movie. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/november-web-only/hunger-games-catching-fire.html.
2We know the serpent in the garden is a reference to Satan because of Revelation 12:9 and Revelation 20:2. The serpent becomes an earthly symbol of Satan’s reprimand.
New Life Narrabri 