Category Archives: Make disciples

Choose : Love or Hostility?

Posted on 27/06/2017 | 2 comments

Aussie blogger Onesimus posted this yesterday and i commend this message to all

see https://onesimusfiles.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/the-choice-between-love-and-hostility/

Recently I’ve been posting a lot of material from and about people who recognise the need to share the gospel with those from a Muslim background, a sharing in both word and deed.

I’ve felt the need to give prominence to that ministry direction because I’ve become increasingly aware that the complete opposite is happening – that too many professing Christians are responding to Muslims with hostility and fear. And it’s happening at a time when opportunities to reach out to those from Muslim backgrounds are increasing, and are becoming more and more critical.

Many of those Muslim background people are in an extremely vulnerable position. Many have witnessed the worst of what’s being done in the name of Islam, have lost everything because of it and are in desperate need of help.

Consider what response they’ve been getting from those who are able to help.

I’ve seen far too much hostility directed against them, even by recognised Bible teachers. I’ve drawn attention to some of that in previous posts.*
While individually we may not be in a position to personally interact with a person of Muslim background, we can ALL do something about the toxic atmosphere that makes the ministry of others more difficult.

I feel that the professing Christians are at a critical point in history, when we will face the choice between obedience to Jesus and His gospel, and the security of our comfortable lifestyles. If we choose the latter we’re likely to see our fears realised and we’ll lose the security we idolised and tried so hard to protect.
And even worse than losing that revered security, those misplaced priorities potentially put our relationship with God at risk.

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The Challenge of Islam

Posted on 13/06/2017 | Leave a comment

Published June 10, 2017 by “Disciple” — see this blog at http://www.nobrokenreed.org/the-challenge-of-islam/

In the late ‘90s, David Pawson recorded his mammoth project, “The Challenge of Islam to Christianity.” The series was based on a prophecy David received from the Lord, around the book of Habakkuk, a prophecy which he tested by going to denominational leaders across the country, asking them ‘is this from the Lord?’ Unanimously the verdict was ‘yes.’ It is the correct way to handle prophesy and as such, the prophecy deserves to be taken seriously. Perhaps it is also coming to fruition.

The prophecy Pawson received was that God was going to use Islam to purify his church, and it specifically related to Britain, and to some extent the West. I have thought a lot about that over the past week or so, but have never forgotten the content of that video series. I don’t want to appear insensitive at a time of absolute horror, but it is worth reading the book of Habakkuk to put this into context. An abridged version, is that the Lord tells the prophet Habakkuk that he is going to use the barbaric Babylonians to purify his chose people the Israelites, because of their idolatry and rampant injustice.

Coincidentally, I am reading some of the later letters in the New Testament (Peter, James etc) as well as having just finished a book called ‘From Small Beginnings’, about how various threads of people came together to form a close-knit, Biblical community in the US. Where does all this fit?

One of the major thrusts of the New Testament, is not grace, nor the love of God even, but the need for Holiness in our own lives. We are called to obedience. But crucially, all the references in the New Testament are to the church being called to Holiness, the church being purified. There is little or no mention of the world, perhaps because God expects nothing better from the world. From beginning to end, the NT calls for repentance and obedience within the church, the body of Christ.

For too long, too much sin has been allowed to flourish in ‘the church’ and go unchallenged and unnoticed. When we have substituted a personal, daily relationship with a living God into an attendance-based activity, sin was always going to gain the upper hand. When we dress up for our weekly attendance, yet continue on as though nothing has changed in the rest of our lives, we make a mockery of what Christ’s coming was all about.

The most powerful thing about the church in Acts, was the body of Christ, living a unified, Holy life in his daily presence. How I live on Tuesday, is no different to how I live on Sunday. In case we’re unsure of this, it is exactly how life will be like for eternity. The Kingdom of God is within you, means we need to start thinking about this now. God, at least, is deadly serious about how the church looks for the coming groom.

Of course, none of this will happen with the current church structure. Not ever. While Sunday is still the ‘holy day’ and the priesthood still lives out our daily Christian lives for us, and when we only ever gather together for an hour a week, our lives will be no different to those around us. Sorry to burst the bubble. Smaller gatherings, led by the Holy Spirit, meeting regularly – challenging each other how they live before a Holy God so that ‘a little leaven doesn’t unleaven the entire batch,’ and reaching out into their community with the joy of the Lord, is exactly what the Lord calls us to do and how we should be living. Outside of the West, I would challenge that is exactly how the church looks – and is flourishing as a result.

Reading ‘Small Beginnings’ recently, the true story of a community in the West, formed by believers who all moved into the same neighbourhood and lived church as they did in the book of Acts is a remarkable story. Our faith becomes so attractive to the outside world, as we love, serve, sacrifice and live Holy lives in a daily relationship with each other and before our Lord; again, it is exactly how we shall live before the Lord throughout eternity. Most importantly though, and this is vital, we cannot hide our sinfulness when we live daily in each other’s lives.

It is our refusal to live differently that makes it so difficult in our culture to make disciples. Last week our entire gathering was out on the streets (what a delight!) but we hear the same story – surely, I am good enough to stand before God? This comes, in my view, from a long held belief in Western civilisation that it is okay for someone to believe in God and continue living unchanged before him. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that though. But, the world buys into it. Hold on a moment…so does much of the church.

The last word Jesus says to his church is ‘Repent’ (in Revelation). Rethinking Pawson’s original prophecy, it would seem that God is not so much interested in punishing us as changing us. Like the nation of Israel, his intention for the church is to be a light in the world, to be so pure before the world that many in the world will choose to join it.

There is a great cost in this though, and that cost is our choice to live differently. Are you, am I prepared to pay that price for Him? The rewards are out of this world.

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Persons are us

Posted on 22/01/2012 | 3 comments

A few years ago, my grandson, Max, when his sister Sophia was a new baby, was pretty jealous of sharing his parents’ attention with this newcomer.  

 Max : “Dad, you are a person.”        “Yes.”.

 “Mum you are a person.”                    “Yes.”

 “And I am a person!”                            “Yes.”

 “But Sophia – a sausage, burning.”   Smiles.

 Still makes their Dad chuckle.

 So what is a person?  Yes, much more than a sausage! Even a sausage burning.

 For Jesus, the one whom God sent to show us what He is like, the most important thing was meeting people. Talking to them and showing that he actually cared that they were there. That they were persons. He heard the cry of their hearts. He entered into their lives.  

 I like what a friend wrote recently about music and song, wonderful though they are: “You may be the only person who connects with someone on a personal level who then shows them that someone actually cares.  This, to me, is more important than all the songs you can write, sing or play.”

 People really want to know that you care about them.  We so need to get to know them on a deeper level and create true relationships with them. We need to laugh with them, cry with them, eat and drink with them.

So where did Jesus meet with people in his days as a Jewish man? Yes, in the synagogue, as he was a Jew. But in the synagogue, it inevitably led to controversy with the strict religious, or conflict over his teaching and then forcible removal. So it was mostly on the street, in the open, at dinner parties, weddings, funerals and especially with his followers and ‘sinners’ over meals.

 And, he doesn’t suggest his followers attend anything like a ‘worship service’ or a church or to go to a synagogue service! Nor were they told to create such human constructions, but to simply go the houses of “people of peace” and accept their hospitality.

After his death and rising and the out-pour of the Holy Spirit, Jesus’  followers continued to meet in Jerusalem in homes and at public places to be part of a whole new community of the Spirit. It was all about loving, caring relationships instead of laws, rituals and legal requirements. Real persons.

 That’s because Jesus and his Dad are persons. We also are persons ‘made in his image’, wonderfully designed and wondrously equipped to be God’s friends.  And so God still meets persons on the street, in the open, at dinner parties, weddings, funerals and especially with his followers over meals.

 Why do we so often deny our uniqueness, our special-ness, our design, the purpose of our existence here on Earth?  Why do we continue to deny the greatest matter of all? Why do we keep on ignoring such a gracious and welcoming Dad?

 I would welcome your answer.

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Posted in Bible Study, Discipleship, Identity, Make disciples