Colin Urquart has helped breed some interesting people

Colin Urquart is one of two people I particularly listen to on Premier Radio, the London Christian station that peters out at Hindhead mid-sentence!!!! The other show is Witness Lee, comrade alongside Watchman Nee.

All that to say Urquart's work has helped spawn some interesting people over the years. One is John Stevens. In case you did not catch his comment I am repeating it here:

A lecturer at Roffey once threw this remark into the ring 'the christian life is a series of revelations about what Christ achieved for us at our conversion'. I've pondered on the scriptures at the end of Luke and beginning of Acts where post-resurrection Jesus 'opens their minds to the meaning of the scriptures concerning himself'. Usual thing: just when they'd got it buttoned up and come to terms with having breakfast with a resurrected Messiah He goes and does that! And then in Acts Peter 'gets it' about the gentiles. Same for us. For me the sudden realisation that in Christ I am something that is impossible for us humanly - to be simultaneously a servant and a son - shattered my son-centric faith and released me to love others more freely.We can get an inkling of something in Christ that seems just out of our reach and then 'pow' the penny drops, we see, and it's easy. The preliminary stage is awkward, frustrating, no-one can help us, we're locked into a struggle, not making much sense to ourselves, unable to articulate much to God except staring at scriptures that seem to be impenetrable and then kazoom revelation and we're there! And then the learning begins. Your biblical heroes get updated, all is new. At the top of my list now is Abraham's servant. After years of trusted servanthood he is entrusted with finding a wife for Isaac. Once he is successful he fades into the background job done. And Abigail who knelt down before David and said I am a servant of your servants and won his heart.So about the sacramental article. I'm sure that will stir up the 'yes but I don't quite get it if I'm honest' reaction in readers. But one day the Spirit will do His work and take that which is His and declare it to us' and we'll realise that it's not something we have to do but that Christ has achieved it already - it just has to dawn on us and then watch the fruit grow! Enjolyed the article. Keep it coming.

Oswald Chambers and the Third level

Sometimes as you look through classics you are like a pig hunting for truffles which is a Norman Grubb phrase I used the other day with Dan. Who would have thought that Oswald Chambers would spell out the three phases of growth so plainly and so accurately in the chapter below? Here they are:

1. By the Cross of Christ I am saved from sin,




2. by the Cross of Christ I am sanctified;




3. but I never am a sacramental disciple until I deliberately lay myself on the altar
   of the Cross, and give myself over emphatically and entirely
   to be actually what I am potentially in the sight of God,viz., a member of the Body of Christ.

In this last stage there are some points. a) it is deliberate. No one can do it for us.And we do it freely when we are ready. There comes a time when as it was said in Hitchhiker's Guide to Christianity...we arrive at Psalm 110 :3 Your (F)people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power; (G)In holy array, from the womb of the dawn,

b)it is entire. Not bits here and there. We see the vision and it consumes us. We may not feel able to give our whole self....but even here we give ourselves freely to the One Spirit whose speciality is to prepare the offering. He can get us there. All we supply is a basic willingness to be made willing.

c)that's when we really become part of the Body of Christ. Our body becomes His Body...but really the truth is we, individually, begin to function in harmony with and simultaneously with all the other parts of His corporate Body on Earth and in heaven.

I said to Stuart Wentworth about my time in the second level...that we were in fact building on jelly. I had spent 10 entire years of my life sowing into what I thought was the Body of Christ. I had left University early for the privilege...effectively spitting in the face of human qualifications provided in those days without cost....to spend each and every day sharing my life with others full-time in the church. Only to realise that it was all only the second level. And that the Body of Christ really only begins properly to function in the 3rd Level. After what Jorge Pradas decribed as each individual's own "Identification with Christ". We enter one by one....but we go out the other side as a fully functioning corporate being.

So for this reason the Ecumenical Movement towards Unity is essentially one mad piece of delusion. Because corporate unity can only work once each and every individual has answered before God this issue: "Unite my heart to fear/respect/sanctify Your Name". You cannot make a unity out of loads and loads of schizophrenic individuals. But once a whole load of individuals know who they are in Christ...unity is a doddle. And once the Ecumenical brigade understand the hours and hours of wasted time in meetings they have spent, they will be completely pig sick. As Florida showed....you can have all these things in a moment , once you really want them!!!!

So before getting into the chapter entitled "Sacramental Christianity" can I fend off the irritation that Sacrament will cause by saying. 1.Sacrament is not in the Bible. But two of the main ones are real enough!! Vehicles of grace. Baptism in water and the Lord's Supper or Communion. There are also others. Laying on of hands. Giving people cloths and hankies. Even our church, when it rolls out a long cloth like a river or a canopy...so people can experience God's grace.

But all these are nothing compared to the real thing. Which is you and me, with Christ inside, moving around, doing His stuff. This is the meaning behind the Furniture in the Holy of Holies. The Lord's Supper in the Holy Place, with the Candle sticks....is really only the "practice run", not the real thing itself. The real thing is Christ in you as you.

2.What is the difference between a "sacrament" and something from the pit of hell...the delusion that we as independant beings can somehow buy a bit of grace? What is the difference between a Toronto Fire tunnel, and say the Austrian village Corpus Christi festival where the bones of hopefully genuine miracle-moving saints are wheeled round the neighbourhood in a cart...Elisha's bones-ish style? What is the difference between Morris Cerullo or Rheinhardt Bonnke anointing his partners with oil, and a Baptist Church mass-dunking its 13 year olds because they are of age....or the Catholic Church mass-massing their 8 years olds at 1 st Communion.What is the difference between Moses raising up the serpent in the wilderness, and the subsequent worship of the same object? What is the difference between Gideon's ephod, and his subsequent shame in creating a religion out of it?

The only difference as far as I can tell is one thing: The Now Word of the Lord. Doing things entirely by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. That is the only difference as far as I can tell. A fire tunnel could become just as deathly. Just give it time!!!

So the first sentence about "sacramental" here is:

1. to the point.



2. incredibly deep



3. immediately addresses dead religion from the word "go".
   

Here it is then : "Sacramental Christianity" from "Conformed to His Image" by Oswald Chambers

THE word " sacramental" must be understood to mean
the real presence of Christ being conveyed through the
actual elements of the speech and natural life of a
Christian. " Everyone therefore who shall confess Me
before men," that is, confess with every part of me that
" Jesus Christ has come in the flesh "—come, not only
historically, but in my flesh. (This is a quotable quote Dan)
1. SACRAMENTAL SERVICE
But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, through whom the world hath been. crucified unto
me, and I unto the world. GALATIANS vi, 14, R.V. marg.
By the Cross of Christ I am saved from sin, by the
Cross of Christ I am sanctified; but I never am a sacra-
mental disciple until I deliberately lay myself on the altar
of the Cross, and give myself over emphatically and entirely
to be actually what I am potentially in the sight of God,
viz., a member of the Body of Christ. When I swing clear
of myself and my 'own consciousness and give myself over
to Jesus Christ, He can use me as a sacrament to nourish
other lives. Most of us are on the borders of consciousness,
consciously serving, consciously devoted to God; it is all
immature, it is not the life yet. Maturity is the life of a child
—a child is never consciously childlike—so abandoned to
God that the thought of being made broken bread and
poured-out wine no longer unseals the fountain of tears.

When you are consciously being used as broken bread and
poured-out wine you are interested in your own martyrdom,
it is consciously costing you something; when you are laid
on the altar of the Cross all consciousness of self is gone,
all consciousness of what you are doing for God, or of what
God is doing through you, is gone. It is no longer possible
to talk about " my experience of sanctification " ; you are
brought to the place where you understand what is meant
by our Lord's words," Ye shall be My witnesses." Wherever
a saint goes, everything he or she does becomes a sacrament
m God's hands, unconsciously to himself. You never find
a saint being consciously used by God, He uses some
casual thing you never thought about, which is the surest
evidence that you have got beyond the stage of conscious
sanctification, you are beyond all consciousness because
God is taking you up into His consciousness; you are His,
and life becomes the natural simple life of a child. To be
everlastingly on the look-out to do some work for God
means I want to evade sacramental service—" I want to
do what I want to do." Maintain the attitude of a child
towards God and He will do what He likes with you. If
God puts you on the shelf it is in order to season you. If
He is pleased to put you in limited circumstances so that
you cannot go out into the highways of service, then enter
into sacramental service. Once you enter that service, you
can enter no other.
2. SACRAMENTAL FELLOWSHIP
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit
JOHN xii, 24.
If you are wondering whether you are going on with God
examine yourself in the light of these words. The more
spiritually real I become, the less am I of any account,
I become more and more of the nature of a grain of wheat ;
falling into the earth and dying in order that it may bring
forth fruit. " He must increase, but I must decrease,"
I only decrease as He increases, and He only increases
in me as I nourish His life by that which decreases me.
Am I willing to feed the life of the Son of God in me ?
If so, then He increases in me. There is no pathos in John's
words, but delight, " Would to God I could decrease more
quickly! " If a man attracts by his personality, then his
appeal must come along the line of the particular work he
wishes to do; but stand identified with the personality of
your Lord, like John the Baptist, and the appeal is for
His work to be done. The danger is to glory in men—
" What a wonderful personality! " If when people get
blessed they sentimentally " moon " around me, I am to
blame because m my heart I lay the nattering unction to myself
that it is because of my way of putting things ; they begin
to idealize the one who should be being made broken bread
and poured-out wine for them. Beware of stealing souls
for whom Christ died for your own affectionate wealth.
3. SACRAMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fin up
on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ
in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the church.

COLOSSIANS i, 24.
By " sacramental responsibility " understand the solemn
determination to keep myself notably my Lord's, and to
treat as a subtle temptation of the devil the call to take on
any responsibility that conflicts with my determined identi-
fication with His interests. God's one great interest in men
is that they are redeemed; am I identifying myself with

that interest ? Notice where God puts His disapproval on
human experiences, it is when we begin to adhere to our
conception of what sanctification is, and forget that sancti-
fication itself has to be sanctified. When we see Jesus we
will be ashamed of our deliberately conscious experience
of sanctification, that is the thing that hinders Him, because
instead of other people seeing Jesus in me, they see " me "
and not Jesus. We have to be sacramental elements in His
hands, not only in word but in actual life. After sanctifi-
cation it is difficult to state what your aim in life is, because
God has taken you up into His purposes. The design for
God's service is that He can use the saint as His hands or
His feet. Jesus taught that spiritually we should " grow
as the lilies," bringing out the life that God blesses.

Miscellany and apology

If you want to see a post of victory http://ern-baxter.blogspot.com/2009/01/when-he-bares-his-teeth-winter-meets.html


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Apology

In A Third Level look At Ministry http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2009/01/third-level-look-at-ministry-iii.html in the comments section I got so excited I used the word "babes".

Can I underline that this was said in a jokey fashion. The only legitimate relations in the Kingdom are "mothers,fathers,brothers, sisters,sons or daughters in the faith" and these are only valid in as much as we seek to do the will of God. So even these are not valid in their own right, but only in the context of moving onward to the Throne of God together.

One of the distinctives of "cult leaders" is inappropriate relationships. If there is any of that still lying around in my spirit...then let's get it out in the Name of Jesus. It is true that what I am saying is still pretty rare...but if I'm pushing the envelope my desire is to be an Ed Miller type taxi-driver to the throne of God, a waymarker with an arrow going straight through his middle.(There's a verse for that you Bible scholars Psalm 84:5 "Blessed are the men whose strength is in Thee...in whose heart are the highways to Zion.") This I believe is the Holy Spirit technical manual description of any minister . Cult leaders build pyramids based on fear like their father the Mafia boss himself...the Devil. Anyone wanting to study a cult from the inside read Children of God's founder's daughter's book: The Children of God the Inside Story by Deborah Davis

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I've never been too sure about girls!!!

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If any of you are ever depressed download this file of David Carr speaking to Salt and Light Leaders. look down page to 4/3/07

You will learn the difference between the English and the Afro ministries, how you should use Horlicks, the nature of UK Songs of Praise on TV, How to speak brummie, and many things you should not otherwise know...oh plus loadsa miracles. Sounds like Dan will probably never be depressed again...but if he is...this one's for him....and Leonard will probably love this guy!!!!

I got back from a Stuart Townend tuning session to find this...

It has several important rings to it. Some, totally unknown to Sally Roberts, who has only started reading this blog since Facebook...so she will be unaware of the Nicholas and Pam connection with the northern countries. She is also unaware that is was Sally Prideaux who i wrote about here in Dan's blog (I'll try and find it...it was the dream Sally had about me getting out of the "charismatic/2nd level " swimming pool and beginning to walk,never to return. She shared this completely at variance with every other leader, who had gathered together to speak the word of Miriam and Aaron getting leprosy over me, for my "rebellion". Dan is familiar with that type of thing.
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Sally Roberts email. Christine and I met her and her 2 "grownups" by Godsident on Havant Station on our way to London Zoo with Ben - Hence the connection with Don about Rock hopper Penguins by the way.

Hi Chris
I couldn't open the music yet, will need to download the DVD X programme later.

Just thought it was a good time to tell you about the dream I had sometime ago. I originally wrote it in a letter to you dated 29/08/07 but I felt very strongly at the time that it would only be appropriate when you finally received the message. So here it is:

I will write it exactly as it is in the letter:

'I am barely awake but I am overwhelmed to write to you. Rarely this has happened in my life when I have felt so strongly to get a message to someone through a dream.

In my dreams, I always remembered your address in Emsworth but on waking , the details had gone.

Recently, I have had several dreams urging me to contact you but the last two nights, the dreams have said a lot more. I dreamed a lot about my time in Bible House, which is in retrospect, unusual for me - especially as it is now over 23 years ago! The dream at first was showing me that I was about to see the fruition of my greatest dreams and of course it was one of those fabulous dreams, never to be forgotten.

As the dream moved on I spent the remainder of the dream looking for you. Even recalling old dreams within the dream, of how long I have been searching for you with vain attempts to get this message to you. In this particular dream I seemed to walk for miles, constantly asking people if they had seen you but no-one had.

Then I saw you in church, not Emsworth but Frank and Sally were also there. In the dream I was a little cross with them as they knew that I had been looking for you. You expressed concern to them, that I was not myself today, so you invited me for a cup of tea but I was still desperately trying to give you the message that I had carried for so long. (though at this point I did not know what the message was!)

Finally, we arrive at Frank and Sally's house for tea, and there are 2 or 3 children there, aged about 9 or 10, though not Frank and Sally's children. As I went to give yo the message, the children challenged my knowledge of languages. The young girl spoke to me in Finnish but I did not understand, the boy then spoke in another language. When I asked what it was, he said, 'Polish!'

I spoke a few words in Russian, which seemed to impress but alas no-one understood Russian! I was asked to speak in French or Spanish but I was reluctant as I knew that you were fluent in both and I had forgotten most of mine!

Again, I tried to speak the message, but the words would not come - Suddenly I awoke and spoke out loud, 'ok! ok! I'll write. I'll get the message to Chris!'

A scripture came to my mind in my semi-conscious state, in the dream I knew where in the Bible it was written and I knew there was a second half to the scripture, however, now half-awake I only knew the first half but I knew the receiver of the message would know the second half.

I recall these words, ' The Lord will make the way ahead clear for you....' The second half was about the rewards you would reap on doing this and it was a list of rewards but I do not recall anything else.

I also felt that I was not alone in the meaning of the first dream, that the message, 'you are about to realise some of your greatest dreams' said to me, was also meant for you.'

I know this may sound batty and maybe I am just getting old; the message could have been anything. I have studied dreams in psychology and I am down to earth and understand that often dreams are often our minds sub-consciously trying to tell us something about ourselves but this dream was different; I have had a rare few in my lifetime like this - it seemed different. It was always a matter of urgency and seemed to keep on recurring.

If it all sounds a load of baloney, just bin it, I would not be offended but I know I would like to sleep better, now that for my part I have past the 'message' on!!!

God Bless
Sally

Why Dan's post was important

This is simply to carry on from the comments on the last post.
Today has been hard but really good. I went down to the west country to pick up a piano and remove it near here. I've been trying to concentrate on my mp3 music of Haydn among other things....but I've been really excited all day. And not just cos I was tuning first thing in Nutbourne Chapel recording studios, for Stuart Townend, who is recording another of his worship CDs....

No I was listening into heaven...and this is what I heard....

You know the Las Vegas sound of one arm bandit machines clicking and down tumbles countless coins... well , this was the sort of thing I was hearing in the Spirit. Dan did something in the spirit in the last post, that in the Cinderella world of the Kingdom....unlocked something which is having ongoing repercussions. Something just shifted in heaven. And I'm excited.
Every so often people do it. Here are some examples:

The widow giving Elijah her last bit of oil.
Peter suddenly blurting out: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God
A particular girl in Wales....could even have been Jessie Penn Lewis herself...which was one of the main keys in the lock to the 1906 revival
A widow in Jonghi Cho's church in South Korea who put her rice bowl up for auction,(Ithink she even stood in it) and a millionaire bought it. Which started to the biggest church in the world.
Then there was Job.Refusing to curse God. He was brought lower and lower and lower. Then after a direct encounter with God...plus him choosing to pray for his friends....then again gold machines of heaven suddenly whirred again...not just money...we're talking the spiritual gold of glory.
See, as I've written before....the devil was in the midst of absolute glory when he eternally decided to rise up and try to usurp the One true God of heaven. He then insinuated himself into our line. But the nature of Adam's offense was not of the same order. It did not originate with Adam. And although it was in a still perfect creation...it was not in the eternal realm of glory.

Each time a believer doggedly chooses right.......on and on and on.....refusing to capitulate....
eventually the heavenly tumblers fall....and some element of what was locked up under Adam,
springs open in the Holy Spirit. And He who the Son sets free....IS FREE INDEED>>>FOREVER.
WHEREVER>>>>>FOR ALWAYS IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES.

Because if we can choose things in a fallen world...then we can sure choose them forever in glory.
And we become safe sons. What Norman calls "safe Spirit Operators".

A Third Level Approach to Ministry III

Continuing the series that looks at how we do the whole thing of "Ministry" as the present Body of Christ.
To quote Gerald Coates from nigh on 40 years ago, "radical" means concerned with the root.
If the root of how we do ministry is a bit off, then like the Tower of Pisa, it doesn't get better the further up we go.

Me and the present setups
After all my postings you are probably aware of the slightly schizophrenic nature of this blog. On the one hand I want to encourage any good, God-raised up vehicle that gets people from a to b in Christ. If there are colleges that are being used to ground people in the Word of God. If there are networks or families of churches that are continually planting out here and abroad. If there are evangelists,especially signs and wonders evangelists bringing in a harvest of new people to Christ, and from there into existing churches.
My problem is this word "vehicle".

Since being with Graham Pulkingham and the Fisherfolk I saw a kind of prototype Kingdom.
A prototype self-replicating Body of Christ. A Body that was birthed in the intercessory pain of Joel. The priests before the altar. Of Graham on a crypt floor for 3 months (read his book in my book list)surrounded by a broken neighbourhood...that neither wanted his church - nor could see anything else in life than the struggle to just survive. Nobody in my hearing has ever used the word "vehicle" about Graham Pulkingham and the Fisherfolk Community.It wasn't a vehicle. It was Christ in their forms.

Here was faith. Evangelistic faith....even willing to come into Dr Challoner's Grammar School Amersham, fresh over from Houston Texas. But here was something else too. Here was a covenantal love between everybody. That was more than duty. There had been some dying and resurrecting...as in Jamie's last post . In Song of Solomon the younger sister is berated for being like a Tower....not having the well developed breasts of Faith and Love.

If we do not have well developed faith and well developed love...
our evangelism contains a lot of hoopla, a lot of brow-beating, a lot of pressure...

The thing is... the gospel is real, folks. We can do some dying and resurrecting. What resurrects is not us, but Christ...in all His unique fragrances and oils. People know on their insides that we have been with Him. The truth is actually far deeper. The truth is He has eaten us for lunch!!!
He never was really that interested in our lives before knowing Him. As clever as we may have thought we were. Whatever we were we really do count as loss. Cos when you've had tasters of Him radiating His Life out through you....such that every one in the room becomes a little irradiated themselves....well why would you ever go back?
So this is my problem
with large networks like Salt and Light, like New Frontiers,and all the many others out there
are they what I have described...the self-replicating Body of Christ
or are they just machines...just vehicles? It was never in Gerald Coates' heart to create a vehicle. But is this in fact what we are left with? New carts for the glory of God. Instead of the poles in my parable.
This is what prompted this post
Obviously I was struck over the weekend by the frankness of Dan's post on Life on Wings. But this is what hit me forcibly yesterday afternoon. And this is nothing to do with Dan.
There is a breed of person who remains in the academic world all his life. Like CS Lewis. Or let's take a Mr Smith. He does all his schooling. He goes to University. He does a Phd, then becomes a teacher in a school. Then out of 30 or more pupils, maybe one or two do likewise. So there already you have 2 generations of pupils that have perpetuated an academic life to perpetuate an academic life.
My point is more subtle than to say we perpetuate academic life, academic study of the scriptures...to forever be replicating just knowledge of the scriptures. Perhaps that is the preserve of the evangelical churches. No my point is a continuation of the last ministry posts.
What our networks perpetuate is a 2 level gospel of forgiveness and moving in the Spirit. The vision of faith (the God of Abraham and his faith walk) and the vision of the Baptism in the Spirit (the God of Isaac and his wells) but nearly nobody reproduces the Life Change or Name change which is hidden in the phrase "seek the Face of the God of Jacob" And it is this last revelation that changes a believer into an oozing Christ stick like Graham Pulkingham. It is this final element that meant the Israel history could start rolling. Via the 12 sons....and we know the rest.
And it is this final level that makes Ed Miller, and Mother Basilea Schlink stand out like Lighthouses in the sea of other ministries. Because, through doggedly seeking God themselves, they both found it,taught it and radiated it. And something similar was coming through Mother Theresa, who for 40 years did nothing but seek God....then when she was called to India she went as "Christ as her". She knew her identification, to use Jorge Pradas' phrase.

The model of Salt and Light under Barney Coombs, and Terry Virgo's New frontiers, and Morris Cerullo's God's Victorious Army , and Rheinhardt Bonnke's ministry schools, and YWAM's Discipleship Training Schools are wrong. They are 2 level affairs, with built-in add ons to try and make up for the deficiences. And to go back to the academic example. This insufficiency is perpetuated throughout the generations. At what point do people learn to live in the real world as "Christ as them". Then perpetuate that. At what point do people see right into the problem of Genesis 3:5, so they can correct it. They don't. So a shallow 2 level Christianity is forever perpetuated.

As I've described before about the Word being like a suspended orb(see comments section of this post)....in the end, when I listen to folk I'm not listening just to their words or their message, I am looking to see if the orb of God's Presence is suspended within what they are saying. This will make more sense if you read the passage again. Because English ministries have little or no knowledge of the 3 part Way of God
You get a limp and flaccid 2 part version
You get sound-ish docrine, but no Presence
You get add-on ministries like "Celebrate Recovery" in Derby church because of the insufficiencies in the original gospel....which leaves people still bound in their particular brand of sins, as I was.Worse than this by the way....at least 3 or 4 of the young people I was in Bible House with are dead. Many more are divorced. Already. I think it's important you read to the end of this post. I am not speaking out of lightweight experience.Perhaps now you can understand where I am coming from with 1st and 2nd level churches
The struggles that Dan describe this weekend are treated by the 1st and 2nd level churches as a brief abberation, as a slightly embarrassing interlude in the running of network churches. This is the tone of one of the Salt and Light church people when describing Todd's difficulties of 2005...let alone his more recent difficulties. It hasn't yet hit the Network churches that THIS IS THE GOSPEL. Everyone plays down these seeming abberrations...but this is Romans 7...this is the Psalms experience David is going on about. This IS how we decide in a safe universe to make a change on the inside of us. This is no human decision. This is a miracle. This isGod doing something at last...when all else failed.(Read Corrie Ten Boom) While we lean on the ultimate victory of the Cross 2000 years ago....this is us making it ours. It is debilitating...read Maurice Smith's 20th Century Pilgrim. It is embarrassing...especially to the pull yourselves up by your bootstraps brigade. But you see, those ones are not fully born again yet. Grace is not active in them yet. Their eternal destiny may be sealed....but God is not just about people's eternal destinies...He wants to get Christ up and running in me and you too...just like all those "top shelf" Christian bookshop people.
Like Watchman Nee. Like Corrie ten Boom. Like George Verwer. Like Madame Guyon. Like John Bunyan who describes all this in incredible detail in Pilgrim's Progress. And no, the order in his story is not wrong. It's you and your churches that are wrong.

Network churches build warehouses of Christians they don't know what to do with. They celebrate two out of the three feasts. Passover and Pentecost. And then they make Tabernacles into a reiteration of Passover because it has a Day of Atonement in it. see Joseph Prince.

No. No. No. Atonement is where it is in the sequence for a reason. If you are established in Passover and Pentecost...and you know His love and His forgiveness and His Presence....on the basis of that grounding He can begin walloping you like a teenager...to conform you into His sonship...to make you into an adult...a Co-worker with Him. Rather than looking at David in an embarrassed way...poor thing...he went through such stuff in the wilderness with Saul and that.... you've got to see that THIS IS THE WAY OF GOD. It's not something God is embarrassed about either.

To conclude I prophesy this with reference to our previous chats recently about Israel.
When the Church gets the revelation about Jacob...and the Name change
When the Church gets the revelation about The Day of Atonement
In that day we are going to provoke the nation of Israel to jealousy
And in that day we will see with our own eyes
A True Day of Atonement
The two houses being made as One (At one-ment) with their God and with each other.
Both flawed and floored by the grace of God in equal measure...that NO MAN MAY BOAST.

Selah

Facebook and the Arthur Blessitt post

Facebook
Something is happening.Facebook is nolonger the sole preserve of the teen, or the mother chasing after their offspring. In the last few weeks many individuals in churches have been linking up. Even men. Even Ivor the plumber. Christine has been on for a while. Today I signed up. see side link.....
While appreciating Sheila's previous comments about such things...I have to say , something is happening...something more than we originally could have thought...us fogey 50 year olds.
Not that we should be chained to a computer....but the odd salient line of info can't hurt..so others know roughly where you are at.And somehow you have a better corporate idea of what goes on outside meetings...or friends in general. So village life may be dead...but this is new, because it is international and instant. Perhaps better fitting the rising worldwide Body of Christ.
Arthur Blessitt
I did a post about Arthur here, and his new film out soon. A new autobiography is coming out too. Someone connected with the publishing has asked me to do a review after seeing this post. His email had got lost in google. (I think we have a referral problem to do with being on Outlook 2000). You never know who is reading these blogs.

~ emerging thought in Montana ~: Sponsor an Executive

~ emerging thought in Montana ~: Sponsor an Executive

John Stevens on Israel and this blog

Hi Chris,

Very good Christmas break. Much fun and a couple of crises - a normal dysfunctional festival!

Have you ever walked down a typical suburban road and seen how every so often a household can get the front garden and house 'just right', others try, it's all there but just doesn't hum, and others have weeds and rusty bikes where others have begonias and lawns. This is a meandering attempt to comploimat you on your website! It's just pleasnt on the eye and easy to roam around.

I'm tempted to join in the Israel stuff. I'm three days away from a sermon on Israel - or more specifically Jesus the King of Isarel. Probably with Mt21 as the centre of gravity. I'd pretty well commited myself on this track days before Gaza kicked off and Anne Franks diaries was broadcast.

It sees that the bible is up to its old tricks on Israel. Enigmatic, a tantalising brew of allegory and multi-level revelation let alone multi-fulfilment prophetic utterances. And that's just Jesus and his proclamations about the impending doom facing Israel and fulfilled in AD70 which seem also to have built-in eschtological truths!

It's the usual 'word of God, living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword able to divide between soul and spirit...' It divides for example between Israel and Israel. Not all Israel is of Israel. Sons of promise v physical descendents. But this has always been the case since Abraham's day. Real judgement.

I've been trying to look at the Jewish people through the eyes of the King of Israel. The cry of Jesus is emotion 'how I have longed to gather you together like a hen with chcks but you would not...'. The whole point of the cross and resurrection is new hope. A demonstration of a love that will not let go. The King will not abandon His people. He will shepherd them even through the centuries of diaspora. And even if the present state of Israel isn't the political entity that welcomes its returning King, He will shepherd them through this. But He is faithful and still longs to gather His people. That some of the physical descendants won't put their faith in Him 'will not have this man to be king over us' in the end is their look out. A long time ago Jesus transferred the kingdom from 'you (ponting to the Pharisees who'd just turned up for another pasting from the King) to a new nation (pointing to the tax collecting and sinning Jewish believers)'.

In being faithful the King of Israel has become the light to the Gentiles - and here we are! But I do see a future for an Israel that the world has never seen. It'll be something like David's crew from the cave at Adullum. The ones in trouble, in debt, the fearful, and the rich, the well to do, the strong, who are willing to give and give again, who recognised that David was the anointed King and would bring about a new kindom rule. Just how Jesus will accomplish this is a mystery. But when Jesus said 'it is accomplished' this is definitely one of those multi-level statements. So many riches were bundled into those few words.

Right now, in Israel, the King is gathering new disciples. His church is small and (full of Level this and Level that!!) and I don't know whether they all resalise the drama that's unfolding or the depth of hope at stake. But one day something dramatic is going to be heard. The father will hear them saying 'blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord' then He will send Jesus, the King of Israel, the Son of David. What happens then, trumpets, resurrection meets mortality, creation is liberated, sons of God revealed in glory - who knows. Maybe we've exceeded the limitations of language at this point? Milleniums and eternity. I've read all the of theories. And finally the apostles question 'is it at this time that you will restore the kingdom to Israel?' will be answered.

Just as you've rumbled (discerned) the difference between Level 2 and 3 and are busy exploring, seeking others, provoking a new thinking etc. Typical. Jesus gathering a new kingdom out of public and largely church gaze. Your website could have the hallmarks of a 21st century cave of Adullam. Wow what it must have been like. Close to David. Weak yet strong. Off stage but centre stage.

Ah well into 2009 we plunge!

John

ps having complimented your website I couldn't work the link to your music. Is there a way of navigating direct from your website?
(Chris asks: Have any others had the same trouble as John?
As for Adullams's cave I think a lot of our blogs viewed as a unit, could be viewed in this way.)

2009 Prophecy through Mark Stibbe

This is drawn from the Father's House website resource - see blog links section
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sensed the Father saying the following. 2009 is a year of birthing new ventures, ministries, and pioneering 'out of the box' churches, in a time of encroaching and increasing darkness. These births will be the subject of attack, just as the birth of Jesus was. But the attacks will not succeed because the new wineskins that are being formed are being formed covertly. Life is going to break out in a time of judgement.
What is born this year, though small in size, will have massive significance in terms of destiny. Each delivery will result in a ministry of great deliverance. In fact what is being born in 2009 has a nation changing potential in some cases, and reformation potential in others. Isaiah 60 verses 1 to 3 are crucial, verse 3 especially. Even great leaders and thinkers are going to be drawn to the pin pricks of light coming from these new things. All this will come out of hiddenness. Humility and holiness are therefore very very important. As at the birth of Jesus there is going to be a radical increase in the supernatural, including signs in the sky, increased prophetic revelation and visitations of angels. Expect more miracles, more in number and more in quality. This is definitely a time for pressing in for the even greater things of John 14, though it will be on the streets that this will be most evident. The power of God is moving outside the house.
These new births are taking place in a time of increasing difficulty for those who put their trust in material things. There will be great problems suffered by many as the lights start to go out. There will be storms of unusual intensity, power cuts, and floods. More institutions are going to implode. Basic commodities will become more and more scarce. Unemployment will rise dramatically.
The new born ministries will however be in place to help those in need, as the revived churches in the New York prayer revival were in 1857. In 1857-9 the US revival involved the business world and happened in the context of a great economic meltdown. I detect a similar dynamic today.
There will be revivals breaking out in unusual places - Bethlehems, as it were - but it will not be revival as we have known it. It will be out of the box and incarnational.... Born in stables more than synagogues. There will be unusual financial miracles as gold is brought to these infant ministries - as at the nativity. If the ministry is born of the Sprit, there will be no recession for the people of God. Wealth will be redistributed. Josephs are going to be raised up to store for the poor. God is calling what I can only describe as holy Robin Hoods who will take what the rich have and give it to the poor.
This is truly a time to be born. Ministries conceived in 08 are about to be delivered. Timing is vital. We can't force the moment. When the contractions start, that's the time to PUSH, Pray Until Something Happens!

Every Day is NOT the same. Saints we have to wake up

Below is my answer to what Sheila writes in her post. This comes out of listening to Mark Stibbe's Noah messages.



Sheila wrote: in No trumpets, no scrolls

Some days are silently life changing. I'm having another one of those silent, yet life-altering, fork-in-the-road sort of days. Never, does a scroll drop from heaven, written in flourishing, heavenly script, "Heads up! Things will never be the same again! This is a Very Important Moment!" Never do trumpets play...not even in your head.
You simply have to become wise enough to "number your days, so that you can apply your heart to wisdom", as the Psalm says. You must discern the moment.
Today, ever so quietly, our balding and cheerful postman delivered a large box.
Hannah's first choice of wedding gown. This one will be the first one she will ever try on. We hope it is "the one"; we'll see. It lies there, on her bed, waiting to change her whole life...and mine.
Today, ever so quietly, I have taken down the Christmas decorations. For the very first time ever, Hannah's go into a separate box, a simple box, nothing fancy, lovingly tied up by yours truly with plaid Christmas ribbon. Those trinkets will hang on her tree, next Christmas, in her first apartment, with her new husband. This was accomplished silently, no words from me, alone in my livingroom, with soft jazz music playing in the background, while I drank a Slimfast milkshake - I'm not dieting, but rather just needed quick nourishment that I didn't have to prepare first. Quiet activity. Life changing, nonetheless.
Today, ever so quietly, I walked into my bedroom, carrying a load of laundry, and caught my son making copies of his transcripts, SAT scores, and immunization records. I had no idea. With no prodding, no hinting, no cajoling, he is enrolling in an area college. He is paying for it himself, aside from any scholarships or grants he can, himself, obtain. He is set on working and paying his own way. He had been on the telephone with Roane State this morning, unbeknownst to his father or me, and as of this moment (just got a cell phone call from him) has paid his application fees, and filled out enrollment papers. He is seizing the day, having prayed desperately for the mind of God concerning his future. Quietly, with no input from his parents, no manipulation from mom; with no gabbing or fanfare or an ounce of insecurity on his part....confidently and almost noiselessly, he took yet another step towards becoming a man. I wasn't expecting it. Life changing stuff, it is.
There was a time, in my young motherhood, when I would have grabbed up a telephone and spoiled the silence. I would have vented these emotions. I would have been far too overwhelmed, even wonderfully and positively overwhelmed, with so many milestones in a day. Now, in the twilight of my mothering years, I have learned to value the quiet, transforming moment, and to meet that moment, and honor it with a quiet heart of my own.
And tomorrow is another day. No telling what it will hold.
"In quietness and confidence shall be my strength...."

Christine has been through this with 3 daughters and I'm tagging on behind with Ben.When I was listening to Mark Stibbe on Noah something of the same finality really hit me when he was describing the shutting of the Ark doors....not related to you ofcourse. But truly every day is not the same. And there are days which change everything. When everything changes. Another thing really hit me once again ...for years we have toddled along in charismatic churches at one level. We assume that things will continue much the same. Just as Southern Baptists thought that things would continue just the same. In 1966, they and other evangelicals at Lausanne Conference on Evangelism projected forward that because of higher criticism and many other factors...there would be hardly any church left by 1990.And then the Southern Baptists went back to their churches and continued much the same as they always did.But things did change. Suddenly. A whole generation were suddenly...and it was sudden...born again in the level of baptism in the Spirit. Things were never like the 60s again.And in the same way another step change is to occur. In a way, Florida was I believe the advert.The cinema trailer. (Some scream back sarcastically...what an advert!!!! But I just answer...my friends were there. They know of what they speak).